Mass Effect: The Paths We Followed
by Arei-The Peridot Dragon
Summary: SI. My Fiance and I found ourselfs in the Mass Effect universe, asked to help prevent the destruction of the Dimension and all it's many time lines by the hands of a natural 'dimension hopper'. This is our story
1. Chapter 1

Minor adjustments and edits. I want to thank Herr Wozzeck and erttheking for their help and letting me bounce ideas off of them.

I highly suggest checking out their works!

Here we go!

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Prologue: Echoes in the darkness

There is a flash of blinding light in an empty room. When the light clears one can find a small black box with glowing blue lines along each side. There is a pulse from the box and a small blue orb with a single orbital ring floats above the box itself. A female voice issues from the box, although no speakers are visible.

'_What you are about to hear may not be easily believed. I ask that you set aside all thoughts of what you know of reality and allow the possibility that what you are about to hear, what you are about to learn, is real._

_This is a record of two humans, drawn into another world. They were given a choice, that wasn't much of a choice at all. Die in their own world, or come to a dimension not their own to fight, and possibly die to keep the dimension from falling apart. They chose to fight and live, though much of what they faced, they faced alone and separated from each other._

_They learned from a mysterious being known to them only as The Lore Keeper, that each Dimension was comprised of hundreds, if not thousands of Timelines. They learned that there were beings that were born with the ability to traverse the dimensions at will. Many of these natural dimensional travellers simply watched, letting events outside of their home dimension happen as they would without direct interference. On occasion however, a D-hopper would try to change events in misguided attempts to make things better only to make things far worse, causing the eventual collapse of multiple timelines if not outright destroying the entire dimensional 'ring', leading to guilt of such level that they go insane. Others have started out insane and wish to cause such collapse for 'fun and games' enjoying the destruction that they caused and playing with their victims, trying to break them by showing them sights of creatures, monsters, from other dimensions. By trying to take away their hope.  
_

_The Lore Keepers duty, as was explained to them, was to monitor all the many dimensional 'rings' and their subsequent timelines to insure that such collapses would not occur or could be countered before all would be lost. To this end they find, or attempt to find, those who fit particular personality types. They refer to these types as the 'Hero' and the 'Necessary'._

_The 'Hero' is one who tries to save everyone, sometimes to the detriment to their own safety. There is no such thing as a 'no win scenario' for these individuals. There is no non-interference policy that they cannot work around in order to prevent a civilization from being destroyed. They will do what they can to save lives even at the potential cost of their own. A noble heart who sees even the loss of the 'one' for the 'many' as failure, unless the 'one' is themselves._

_The 'Necessary' is one who makes the hard choices even if it paints them in the light of a 'villain' they will do what they must to save the most lives in the long term. If it helps you to understand this personality, please think, if you will, of having to face the choice of saving one hundred children versus a team of scientists who are on the verge of a cure of a slow acting virus, a cure that would save millions. You might choose the children, while a 'Necessary' personality type would choose the scientists, thus finding themselves lauded a monster for a Long Term choice to save millions at the cost of those children's lives._

_Thus, with these personality types in mind, the Lore Keeper chose two people from a world called Earth. A couple, engaged and happily enjoying themselves at a simple convention. The year for them was 2013. And they would find themselves thrown into a universe not their own all in a desperate bid to save the lives of people's not their own. They were given backgrounds so they would be able to mesh more easily with that universe and not be out of place, but not given memories of their created lives. They were given a choice of who and what they would want to be in that universe, should they live, and were set upon the paths to their desires. They were given gifts they would have to learn to master through trial and error for they were given no time to adjust, merely thrown into the fire to succeed or fail. They would have no family to turn to, and even when they wished to turn to each other, they were light years apart and could not truly comfort each other beyond words._

_You will hear their thoughts, their hopes in small audio recordings either before or after each 'log'. All that we ask, is that you believe_.'


	2. Chapter 2

I'm not stopping the HP story but I have had this rattling around for a while now. It's a double SI and will jump between POV's. This will not be the usual SI either...You'll see.

:)

I Do Not Own Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 or Mass Effect 3.

AN: I do not have anything against the endings. I am glad they came out with the extended cut as my only real problem was the original endings were not that fleshed out and left several questions for me which were answered by the extended cut. I even enjoyed the Leviathan and Omega DLC. As for the relays, I don't think using the ancient weapon destroyed the relays, but drained them of almost all power in order to release the reaper destroying energy. The drain would have been repairable, as we know by the extended cut that the worlds were able to rebuild and reunite, but dependent on your choices would show a result of how long it took to repair. Heck, with the 'take over reapers' option 'Shepard' helps rebuild the relays and even with the 'destroy all synth' options the 'Leviathan' is still there to help rebuild if I recall correctly.

That being said! Some things will end up changing, quite drastically actually. So I do hope you enjoy.

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Chapter One: Comic Con. Lucian POV

-Begin audio log-

"You want to record a log on what happened to us?" says a male voice in a deep soft baritone.

"It's not like anyone will believe it if they hear it and we can't go home." says a soft female voice. "We need to remember where we came from."

"Why? It's better here, you can't argue that. No glasses or contacts for either of us, no more kidney stones for you," there is a sound of agreement from the female voice. "No cancer..."

"Can't say that there's 'galactic peace' though."

"There will always be war, 'War never changes' remember?"

There is a slow intake of breath follow by a soft sigh.

"I'm really glad they make those things without nicotine." says the female voice with a teasing tone.

"Indeed, flavored too." Another sigh. "This is pointless and if anyone finds it..."

"They wont believe it, that's the brilliance behind it, who here would believe that we're from a plane of existence where all of this is just a story for peoples amusement?"

"Exactly, so why do it at all?"

"I want to try to send it home. We might never be able to go back but that wont stop me from finding a way to let mum and dad know that we didn't just...disappear."

"They'd call it a fake you know, even if you can get it through the dimensional barriers. And that all is reliant on if they are even alive. The Lore Keeper herself told us that time runs differently when you cross to a different dimension, confirming some of your own theories, and that time only runs the same when you are within a different timeline of the dimension you are currently in. Our families may well be dead."

"Probably, or maybe only a few seconds have passed for them instead of years for us. Regardless, I want to try, please my Darkness, even if it's a false hope, let me hope."

"At least you realise it might be pointless. Very well. Project Time Capsule will commence." A thoughtful sigh escapes the man. "Where to start?"

"Comic Con of course."

"Of course my Light..."

-End audio log-

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We'd finally done it. We were at Comic Con. My fiance and I had only ever gone to Blizz Con before and had finally decided that a quick trip across the water to Seattle for Comic Con would be worth the money this year. I was dressed as Shunsui Kyoraku and my girl as Orihime from Bleach.

Ah, I do apologize. I haven't given you our names have I? My name is Lucian Mathias and my fiance's name is Lorraine Kuhlmeyer. I stand at six foot five, have long brown hair pulled back in a tail usually and tend to sport a goatee and moustache. My eyes are a dark enough brown that 'Raine often compares them to dark chocolate. I've got Samoan blood so I'm built big with broad shoulders and even though I have a bit of a gut and look like an angry bear I'm still more likely to loom over you and scare you into submission rather then hit you. I've got a job as a bouncer so I have the 'Death Glare' down pat and the usual customers all know not to mess with me so it's an easy job. Don't think I'm just a thug either, I've got a genius level IQ, love good debates and enjoy reading. I'm trained as a Pharmacy A Technician and even thinking about becoming a Pharmacist. I'm just a bit lazy is all and prefer playing games like the Mass Effect series, Res Evil, Zelda and more. A good storyline is prefered, even enjoy a good stealth game like the Metal Gear series.

Lorraine though stands at five foot five, she always says five foot six and argues for that last inch, I humor her. She has bright red hair that's just this side of orange and light brown eyes. She got a little bit of a pudge that doesn't bother her like it would most girls. She says she'd rather be a touch overweight then be like those who prefer the 'walking skeleton' look. Honestly who likes being able to see their girls ribs because she's so underweight and malnourished? Eh, just my opinion.

Anyway, she loves games as much as I do, tending to go for anything with a good storyline, though she's not that great with stealth games. Hilarious listening to her play Dishonored while trying to go through with no kills and not getting spotted, she's cute when she swears. The only downside is having to hold her on occasion when she breaks down and starts crying because a favorite character dies, like Mordins' death in Mass Effect 3. She'd been going for full Paragon and Mordin sings his song if your ratings high enough, you know, 'I am the very model of a Scientist Salarian'? Broke her heart to hear him sing that before he died, she couldn't play for almost an hour. Mourned for what The Illusive Man and Cerebus could have been had TIM not fallen prey to indoctrination, not so much tears then but a little bit of a rant at his foolishness in injecting himself with reaper tech. It's a little annoying overall, they aren't real people, but hey it's how she is and I love her despite it and because of it. She's got a good heart. Save the world if it meant her own life, not that I'd let her.

Back to Comic Con. The weather that day was perfect, just that side of too sunny. Everyone was milling around, most people in costume, 'Raine had her camera out and was taking photos like crazy. We had our allotted spending money pulled from our accounts and the rest was to remain untouched so we could pay bills and such.

'Raine was taking pictures of a group of Deadpool's when there was a sudden scream from behind us. I twisted around as the scream was not a happy one, but a true, terror filled 'DANGER OVER HERE' scream. I caught sight of a man dressed almost like a homeless man with...dynamite, there was dynamite on his chest, enough sticks to cause real damage. He was screaming and I couldn't make out what he was saying. I turned and grabbed 'Raine and started to run for one of the side paths closest to us intent on getting us behind cover.

There was a sudden flash of light and I was suddenly wrenched back. I stumbled managing to keep my feet and turned back to shout at 'Raine for trying to stop us, to tell her we had to run. What I saw confused me. She was frozen in place mid run, fear and determination to keep up with me in her eyes. As I look around I see that everyone else is frozen as well. The bomber was frozen just as his thumb was pressing on the trigger and a man in military fatigues was in mid-tackle hanging in the air.

"Ha! Yata!" I shout and give a little jump raising my arms, for a moment thinking somehow I might have miraculously channeled Hiro from the Heros show.

There was another flash to my right and I see what I _thought_ was a woman moving toward me but her form is shifting constantly, from Human to Asari to some kind of squid thing I don't recognise. The form kept changing up until she was a few feet from me and seemed to settle on a watery form that seemed a combination of Asari and Zora. Disappointment filled me as I realised I didn't cause the time freeze.

"Hello young human." The voice seemed an odd echo of voices, young girls, women, elder ladies. "I am the Lore Keeper."

"...So?" Maybe not the best thing to say, nor in the best tone, but I wasn't exactly in a good mood. The Lore Keeper didn't seem to mind, in fact she seemed amused, which didn't help my mood.

"I am here to offer you a choice young Mathias." she said in her multi toned voice. "Stay, and you and all here will either die or be injured in such that you will wish death..."

"Wish death how?" I interrupted. Again no anger from her, merely amusement.

"Do you wish to continue life being unable to see? Unable to hear? Without your legs? Without your arms? Without your mate? Or perhaps you would cover your mate, protect her but she would still be injured and you lost to her in noble sacrifice. Do you think she would be strong enough to 'live' and not simply...'survive'?"

"Don't you DARE threaten 'Raine" I growled at her in a low voice, standing at my full height instead of my usual slouch.

"I am not the one who threaten's her." She indicated the homeless man. "He is."

"But you can help me move her!" I took a threatening step toward the woman and she only shook her head.

"You haven't actually moved from your spot. I cannot stop what is happening unless you choose the other option. That is the Law I must follow."

"What do you mean? What choice?" I said with annoyance in my voice.

"Dimensions are tricky, especially if you put in Time Travellers or Dimensional Hoppers. Several dimensions are affected by these travellers in ways that will doom those dimensions, or at least the particular timeline the outsider enters."

"...And?" I cross my arms. What she says is interesting, no doubt, but she needs to get to the 'choice' soon.

"And, on occasion that damage would be so significant that it would alter not merely one, but multiple Time Lines. My job as Lore Keeper is to find those who ends are nigh and are capable of making the hard choices needed to keep the Time Line from spiraling so out of control that the other Time Lines are damaged or destroyed."

"So you're looking for a hero? Lady, I'm no Hero." I scoffed.

"No. You are not. She is, if she so chooses." She indicated 'Raine. "I am speaking to you both at this time, for I need you both. The Hero and the One who chooses the Many over the Few. I am hoping for you both in truth, for I believe I will need you both to save this Dimension and all it's many Time Lines."

"Wait...So are you saying that if I choose to go and she does not then I will appear to die to her, leaving her alone and vise versa."

"Yes."

"But if we both choose to go what happens?"

"Then by the Law I follow I can disable the bomb. Those here will live for your sacrifice to a Greater Cause. Both of you will become 'missing persons' to this world.

"But doesn't time pass differently for other Dimensions? We could be gone for only a minute, right?"

"It will be a one way trip, time difference will mean nothing." She chuckled softly. "You both ask similar questions."

"She's barraging you with her theories on time and dimension isn't she?"

'Raine had a theory that she described as a 'record effect'. A record has notches and each dipped notch is a particular dimension and all its time lines and each raised notch is the barrier that prevents the dimensions from colliding. The further out you go the more likely you are to come across a 'myth' world as well as the slower time itself will go. One minute in an 'inner' dimension would be one year, or more, in an 'outer' dimension. The center would be a hub dimension where there is no time. Was this being from that center hub 'Raine thought of?

"Oh yes." She said with a grin. "And that is a yes to both of your questions."

"Hey now! Out of my head!" I glared at her.

"Surface thoughts that are all but shouted at me are hard to miss." She said with a shrug.

"Fine, what happens when we get there?"

"A background will be created for each of you to explain your presence. As far as anyone in that dimension would be concerned you will have been born there. I will also allow you to have the ability to has access to a goal, something that once the danger has passed, and if you live, will be your lively hood. You can also take what you have on you."

"Will you tell me what world we will go to?"

"Not until you choose."

I growled softly and looked to 'Raine. Staying would be bad and I would not leave her to do something foolish. The Lore Keeper was right to call her a 'Hero', she had that kind of foolish, optimistic mentality, if I wasn't there to stop her she'd get herself killed. I sighed and glared at the 'woman' in front of me.

"Can you tell me her choice?"

"No. Not until you have chosen."

"She wouldn't leave me to fight alone and I wont leave her to make a fools choice to save someone."

"What is your choice?"

"I'll go."

There was another flash of light and 'Raine was suddenly by my side. She let out a shout and hugged me tight tears of relief in her eyes.

"Hey Little Light, I'm ok. Stop crying."

"Sorry..." 'Raine said, wiping at her eyes. I gave her a swat to her bottom.

"What did I say about the 'sorry's'?"

She giggled slightly and then moved out of the hug, grabbing my hand firmly in her own.

"Some things are meant to happen. Some things cannot be allowed to change. The world I am putting you in has three known 'installments' as far as you are concerned and you _will not_ be able to change some things so do not mourn for what you cannot change." She says this looking at 'Raine. "Everything within the 'first act' must occur. You will need to focus, to prepare, to ready yourself to join the 'focal point' of that dimensional universe."

"Universe?" 'Raine asked. "So we're not just going to an alternate earth?"

"No, you will be going to the Dimension that you know as 'Mass Effect'."

"Oh I know my goal!" I laugh in dark amusement.

"What's that love?" 'Raine looks up at me and I can see the Lore Keepers amusement grow.

"I'll start off, if possible, with trying to become a Specter, but that'll just be my cover."

My grin widens as 'Raine tilts her head to the side with a small frown.

"What, cover for becoming the Shadow Broker?"

"No, too small Little Light." I look down and grin at her.

"My main 'goal' Lore Keeper," She holds out her hands in a 'hit me with it' gesture. "I want to replace Jack Harper as the Illusive man."

'Raine face palmed causing me to burst into dark laughter.

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So what do you all think?

Review please!


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Someone Pm'd me and asked why I'm not covering the events of ME. I am and I'm not. One, I think those events will be needed to be left alone in order to shape what kind of person Shepard will be in my story and will prevent the SI's from changing how she develops. Two, the SI's need their own development and they'll need more time then just the year during ME's events. Three, honestly the last part is that I haven't actually played more then a single mission of ME when a friend was visiting when I was younger and I never got around to playing it in full so I know almost none of the dialog and the like other then what I've read in other fanfics and what I've read from the ME WIKI. Love ME2 and ME3, just never felt like going back to play ME all the way through.

Now that's not to say some things wont change for ME itself, some of her choices wont just be the normal choices we are used to. Just that the SI's will have nothing to do with Shepard and her choices.

:)

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Chapter Two: Ironing out the Details. 'Raine POV

-Begin audio Log-

Soft laughter echoes from the recorder.

"I was not expecting you to say you wanted to be TIM of all things you know."

"Come on Little Light, you know me. If I had the chance to hold any power in any game or 'what if' scenario I would be the one behind the throne."

"True, but still..."

"Still nothing Little Light..." A slow intake of breath and a sigh. "Your turn now."

"Knucklehead."

-End audio log-

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A scream that sent us into a frantic run for safety. A sudden suspension of time and then the sudden appearance of a weird female who calls herself the 'Lore Keeper'. I can only imagine that I might very well be comatose or dying right now and that this is some sort of death dream. Regardless, what the Lore Keeper had to tell me at that time was, interesting to say the least.

I had so many questions. About my 'record theory'. About where she came from and if she lived in the 'Hub' I imagined. About Dimension Hoppers, natural or otherwise. So many questions.

She confirmed that my 'record' theory was accurate in many ways, and off in many others thought she wouldn't clarify the points I'd gotten wrong. She was indeed from the 'Hub' or 'Void' dimension that I'd imagined and was the chosen among her people to act as Lore Keeper. Her job was to monitor the dimensions and make sure that any who travelled time or dimension didn't screw up the entire dimensional 'branch'. Natural Dimensional Hoppers could be the most dangerous if they lost themselves in madness, affecting and damaging multiple dimensions.

When she told me that our whole mission would be to stop a dimensional hopper I paled, damn near panicked actually. You see I had just finished reading 'Deadpool VS Marvel' where he kills everyone in the Marvel universe and then moves off to one of our 'own' timelines to kill of the Marvel workers in a lethal fit of 'fight the power' so to speak, and I was worried I might very well have to face him of all people.

The Lore Keeper assured me that he was already dealt with and that our time lines had no worry with Deadpool's actions beyond that one timeline. The machine he used functioned under different laws of physics from our own and didn't function any longer, he was effectively trapped.

That helped me relax enough to contemplate the choices put before me. Stay and die a painful death, stay and live, hurt but with my love 'dead' or go on a 'mission' which could very well kill me. Well those were pretty damn sucky options to put it mildly.

"Why me? Why us?" I indicate Lucian who is frozen in mid run in front of us.

"I need a Hero and I need one who can do what is Necessary. A Hero acts to save all that they can, that is you. You would save who you could even if it is a Time Locked Event."

"Like finding a way to save Gallifrey in the Doctor Who universe, is that what you mean by 'time locked'?"

"Yes, exactly that." The Lore Keeper smiled at me and the smile reminded me of my mother when she would praise me for a job well done. I blushed.

"And Lucian?"

"He is the counter, the Necessary. We always try to find a counter to the 'Hero', though it is not always possible. The counter is one who would stop the Hero, you, from trying to change a Locked Event, for to try might kill you pointlessly, or if you actually succeeded would cause the very collapse we are trying to prevent the dimensional hopper from causing. He is also the one to make the hard choices that you couldn't."

"Like me trying to save both Kaiden and Ashley...when the smart choice is to save the salarians and whichever of the two you'd chosen to go with them. The many versus the one. I...I'd like to think I could." I say in a soft yet pained voice. The thought of actually making that kind of choice...

"You could, I believe, but it would haunt you. Potentially it would cripple you. A Hero does all they can, but to fail wounds them deeply."

I flinched at the thought, knowing that she was right. It's stupid in a way but I had a cat once, he got into a bad fight and we had to tend him back to health from a bite wound on his neck. We didn't have the money to take him to a vet so we did all we could to tend to the wound. It looked like he was getting better but the wound had gotten infected despite our efforts and he ended dying due to blood infection.

I was a mess for days afterwards and that's just from being unable to save my CAT. I knew that if I did all I could to save a person and failed them that it would hurt, heck it's one of the reasons I couldn't go into a medical profession, right now I'm working as a Junior Mechanic at Ralph's. Easier to fix tech then it is to fix people, people...most people...don't cry over their vehicles if it's not repairable.

I sighed softly and pushed my hair back and looked back up at the woman.

"You have a point. I'll go though, I know Lucian. Neither of us would choose to die nor leave the other behind. I'll follow my Darkness and will kick this D-Hopper of yours in the ass."

There was a flash of light and Lucian was suddenly beside me. I teared up and grabbed him in a tight hug. I snuggled close and then pulled back with a 'sorry' only to get a swat and a small scolding. He'd gotten so tired of me saying 'sorry' all the time that he said he'd swat me for each one that came out of my mouth that wasn't necessary.

I grinned at him and listened as we were told about where we were going. When I heard we were going to the Mass Effect universe I figured I'd want to have med training, sniper rifle training, also focused on sniper for all of my 'Shepard's' and tech training, a ship mechanic like Tali with the skills to patch people up if needed and my usual weapon of choice if available was always the sniper rifle or crossbow. I had another thought but Lucian's laughter brought me out of my musing and I looked at him in confusion.

When he said he wanted to replace TIM...and I knew he was serious about it too... I face palmed and sighed softly in exasperation.

"He can't do that can he?" I asked over his laughter, fighting back the urge to elbow him in the side.

"There must always be an Illusive Man, but must he be Jack Harper?" She looked me in the eyes and shook her head and gave a small smile that didn't relieve me, at all. "For what needs to be done to keep this dimensional time line intact, it is not necessary that 'TIM' be Jack Harper, just that there is a 'TIM' and by extension Cerberus."

"But Cerberus becomes the Reaper's Trojan Horse!" I said with panic in my voice. The Lore Keeper just smiled at me reassuringly.

"There will be, must be, a Trojan Horse for certain events to happen, like Sanctuary on Horizon, but it does not mean it will be Cerberus does it Lore Keeper? Especially if you have a rogue D-hopper trying to damage the time line. And honestly as far as I'm concerned Jack's already been affected by Reaper tech." Lucian crossed his arms, smirk still in place.

"Um?" I blinked up at Lucian in confusion for a moment before I remembered, "Right, the events of Mass Effect: Evolution? The Artifact they were around."

"Exactly, he may not have been around it long, but it doesn't take long for it to affect people. Saren wasn't exactly around it for a huge period of time either before Jack and his team caught up to him, and we know it was Reaper tech because of what one of his team was turned into after getting hit by the blast. If you expose yourself in small dosages you are STILL exposing yourself and we know that he knew about the derelict reaper before he sent Shepard to it. Did he ever visit it himself? He might have, for a few moments at a time. Remember how much of a hard on he had for getting the collectors base at the end of ME2? He knows it's dangerous tech, he knows what that tech can do to his people when under long term exposure, and he wont just be throwing in grunts, he'd be putting in high rank scientists to study it! Foolish. Jack Harper was just a highly trained, smart Merc, now he's this brilliant mastermind? Doesn't seem that brilliant when you think about what he wanted to do now does it?"

I tilted my head to the side and realized he had a point. Even by the end of ME3 they had no real way to 'shut down' a fully indoctrinated person other then by killing them. And what TIM would propose would be long term exposure to hundreds of scientists. Without a fool-proof way of defeating the indoctrination process having any reaper tech on hand, even supposedly 'inactive' tech like the derelict, would be the equivalent of willing handing your only weapon over to your enemy so they can kill you with it.

"TIM must exist," Lucian continued, "because Cerberus must exist so that the Lazarus Project can be completed and Shepard can be reborn stronger then before. 'We have the technology, we can rebuild him/her'. With someone else other then an already indoctrinated puppet on the throne Cerberus may very well be able to be one of the biggest assets at Shepard's fingertips."

"You are catching on, good." The Lore Keeper nodded slowly looking pleased.

"What about Shepard though?" I asked. "She was around Reaper tech herself."

"True, but never longer then for a mission, the derelict Reaper and the Collector base. Most of the artifacts she runs across are Prothean in nature, not Reaper." Lucian responded.

"Even then, Shepard is always there. Male or female, Paragon or Renegade." The Lore Keeper says softly interrupting us. "That universe has created a 'Shepard' for every cycle that has passed, and for almost every timeline that exists. For every time the Reapers have come, the Universe had tried to counter their misguided programing. As you know, all those before this 'Shepard' have failed, and I will tell you what I know as Lore Keeper as well. The 'Shepards' all share the same soul."

Lucian and I fell silent at that revelation. I shook my head sadly after a few moments.

"What stopped all the other attempts. The government of that time? Simple lack of time? Not enough troops?" I asked.

"Many times the governments unwillingness to listen have been the cause. Many times the simple lack of time has been the primary cause, recall that if Shepard did not stop Saren from turning the citadel into relay for the Reapers to use that they would not have had those years to prepare before the full onslaught. It was only through the efforts of the last 'Shepard' that the 'Keepers' were reprogrammed to not automatically start the 'harvest program'."

"Thus setting the stage for 'our' Shepards success." I said with a nod. It sounded reasonable.

"And even then most governments didn't listen and that alone could have cost them the cycle. It took Garrus talking to his father to even get the small task force he had to start forming any kind of tactical plan." Lucian said with a nod. "It's this constant preparation of that one soul that's stopping any true indoctrination isn't it?"

"Wait is it the same soul across all the different time lines?" I ask curiously and as I look to the Lore Keeper I see her shaking her head with a soft laugh.

"No more questions." She looked at my fiance, "Lucian, Specter as cover is out of the question. The second Specter must be Kaiden or Ashley, depending on which one lives. However once the changes are complete and your bodies put through the normal vaccinations and alterations most soldiers have, you can be put through the N7 program as your cover. It will be up to you to follow the path you desire." She then turned to me full on. "And yourself?"

"Ship Tech like Tali, but I would like to have Sniper training and some medical training. I also have...one more question?"

"Very well, I know your question and it is reasonable to ask."

"We know that there is a type of Post-cog ability thanks to Javik, are there and Post/Pre cognitives, real ones, among humans? How else would I explain my knowledge, my 'bad feelings' to Shepard when we join him/her?"

"Other then the Protheans, Post and Pre cognitive abilities are almost non-existant. Only Asari and Humans show the ability in the current cycle and it is rare in Asari to the point of being legend and even rarer in Humans despite many who pretend to be as such. It can be a logical reason for why you have the knowledge that you have, but you will have to be careful how you present the 'ability' to others. And as the future as you know it will differ, you will want to focus on past events. Also if you are going to have this as part of your 'background' many will know of your ability and covet it, it will put you at risk. You will have received 'specialized training' under the Asari to 'control' yourself."

"Got it." I nod at the reasoning behind it. Such a rare 'ability' could be valuable to others but as I only have specific knowledge it would stand to reason that I would have needed training to 'shut off' random, uncontrolled visions. A lot of stories explain that cognitive people are not able to control their abilities without severe training.

"That can also be the reasoning for putting another Ship tech on the Normandy." Lucian says thoughtfully.

"Oh quit your plotting!" I said with a amused huff.

"No." Lucian responds with a smirk.

"Here, these are for you." With a small flash of light two little thin bracelets appear in the Lore Keepers hands. I let out a soft squeal and grabbed one slipping it onto my wrist. Immediately the normal Omni-tool glow surrounds my hand and 'welcomes' me to the user tutorial. Lucian slips his on with a small roll of his eyes.

"You will be placed in the year 2178, enough time to train for the paths you wish to follow. You will receive notifications from me on occasion letting you know what Shepard's choices are through the events of ME in 2183. Then you will join Shepard when she is revived in 2185. At least, one of you will, if Lucian's choice in paths is successful."

"What no guarantee of success?" Lucian said with a raised brow.

"Not for that path, your N7 training as 'cover' can be done easily, but to become TIM? That will be significantly harder for you to achieve." A small 'screen' appeared in front of the Lore Keeper and our new Omni-tools pinged. "Now, this timeline's Shepard is Female, Spacer origin and is a War Hero. Also she is classified as a Soldier and can handle any and all weapons. Once you arrive you will also be able to view your own backgrounds. Review the information and memorize it, it will be your life from this point on."

A soft sigh escapes the Lore Keeper and she gives us a small sad smile.

"For this I am sorry."

"For what?" Lucian asks warily as I grab onto his hand again.

"The pain."

The next thing I knew was blinding light, the sense of falling and pure agony, worse then anything I'd known filled me as I fell. It felt like one of my kidney stone attacks but instead of the pain being centered in my lower abdomen it was all over. I screamed, at least I think I did, before everything blissfully went dark.

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yay another chapter done!

Please Review!


	4. Chapter 4

yay next chappie!

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Chapter 3: Learning the ropes. Lucian POV.

-Begin audio log-

"I've wondered on occasion..." Says the male voice.

"Whats that?" says the female voice, curiosity lacing her tone.

"How much pleasure would Jack have taken from that level of pain?"

There is a long silence followed by a exasperated sigh.

"Only you would think of something like that."

"Needed something to think of to ignore the pain, I've got a higher pain threshold then you..."

-End audio log-

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The pain was intense and the light burned so brightly that I thought for a moment that I would be permanently blinded by the end of it. I'm quite certain I bit through my lip at one point to hold back a roar of pain and had just enough reasoning ability left to think that Jack would probably have gotten a kick out of this kind of pain before I passed out.

I woke with a jolt and sat up abruptly only to hit my head against some kind of metal with a very loud 'clunk' sound. I groaned and fell back against what felt like a mattress. I heard unfamiliar male laughter from the left of me and opened one slowly to glare at where the annoying laughter originated. I could just make out the blurry form of a male leaning against a door frame.

"Heya mate, nice job there." The male said in an australian accent.

"Fuck off..." I muttered as I sat up a little slower, the other guy just let out another bark of laughter.

I noted that what I had struck was an upper bunk bed. I shook my head again for a moment cursing my height and looked around slowly. I was in some sort of barracks room and the room was very spartan in design. There was barely anything to act as decoration other then a clock on the wall and a single picture attached to the wall next to the upper bunk. The picture was of a group of different species females, human, asari and turian all in equivalent bathing suits on a beach and that caused me to blink for a moment in surprise at the sight.

"Anyway, grubs ready, don't want to miss out on our first real meal in months. Those damn MRE's haven't improved over the years."

I rubbed at my eyes and blinked a few more times, the room finally coming into focus.

'Wait...' I thought to myself startled. 'I can see?'

I reach up to see if I'm wearing my glasses, true I didn't have them on me at Comic Con, but without them I can't see clearly at a distance. Sure enough, they aren't there. I blink in surprise and look around the room slowly. Everything was in sharp relief even at a distance. I grinned and laughed softly to myself. The first 'gift' from the Lore Keeper, my vision was fixed. I wondered if she'd repaired it to regular 20/20 or if it was better. I needed to check my medical records later. But that could wait. Where was 'Raine?

I frowned and glanced down at my omni-tool which was flashing at me. After going through the quick tutorial, rather simplistic user interface actually, I found several messages waiting for me. I ignored the ones from LK and focused on the one from 'Raine opening it quickly.

_-My Darkness,_

_I've been in the ME universe for a few days now. This is absolutely amazing though! Guess what?_

_I'm on one of the Quarian Live ships! I've was even given a human version of their suits! One of their military men, Kel'el vas Qwib Qwib, that ship name still makes me giggle, is teaching me basic fire arms skills and sniper skills. Get this though, I'm on the RAYYA! And I'm learning my tech skills along-side Tali'zorah! How sweet is that?_

_I had to bite my tongue to keep from squealing like a blasted fan-girl when I realized who was going to be my fellow student. Though the other student with us is a dick, Rhys'til. 'Human filth this' and 'walking contaminant' that. But I ignore him for the most part even though I want to give him a swift kick sometimes. He's getting gun training too so I'm stuck with his smarmy attitude more then I'd like. He's in a bit of trouble as it is._

_Anyway, seems I've already gone through all the 'training' with the Asari for my 'cognitive' abilities. I bloody well trained at the Ardat Yakshi Temple, how nuts is that? I think, if this is the same Falere, then I'm friends with one of Samara's daughters. Bloody hell though, if I'm reading this message from her right then she 'likes me' likes me, but she also asks if I've heard from my 'army man' so that's a bit of relief, everyone knows I'm taken and I don't have to worry about her flirting turning serious._

_Apparently cognitive abilities are so rare that only a few know how to train to 'ignore' the visions, still get them, but you can basically force yourself not to be 'paralized' by them which is what happens to Asari with the gift. Also once you have a vision it's there for good. So while I might forget what I had for breakfast, I'd never forget 'seeing' a certain Commander save her pilot at the cost of her own life if I shook the 'pilots' hand. Isolated Eidetic Memory is what they called it._

_Ack, I've got to go. We're learning a hacking program and it's my turn at it. Wish me good luck!_

_Love you!_

_PS: A lot of my past is still the same even though it's been updated. 'IT' still happened. Also my parents 'passed away' some years back. Blue Suns attack on the ship they were travelling on. What's your past look like?-_

I laughed softly at the rambling nature of her letter and closed out of it to move to the other messages from LK. Opening the one labelled 'Medical' I was able to review my current medical history. My vision was 20/15, weight still around 250 lbs and a glance down showed I still had a slight pudge but not much of one, it was replaced mostly by muscle. No biotics but I have some top of the line heavy skin weave apparently. I'd had minimal injuries over my years of training and service. LK left a note that she had 'implanted' knowledge of my 'weapons of choice' in this world. Shotgun for up close and assault rifle for normal fights with a pistol as backup.

I leaned back a bit at that and thought about my weapons to see if what she said was true. A soldier would have intimate knowledge of how to take apart, repair and put back their weapons in record time. I could do that with my old Smith & Wesson back home, but this new equipment?

Sure enough when I thought about 'my' shotgun a M-300 Claymore came to mind. Low ammo clip but one of the most powerful shotguns of the current year. Krogan in origin and something I only used if enemies got too close. Highly reliable in close combat and sure to take out an enemy in one hit, or at least disable a Krogan long enough to finish them off or retreat.

I could mentally go through all the steps of cleaning and maintaining my weapons and found that as I thought of it my hands were actually moving on their own as if I actually had the gun in front of me. I grinned to myself in satisfaction. Not only did she give me the knowledge but the muscle memory as well.

It explained the pain very well, made it a worthwhile trade off in fact. She'd altered our bodies enough so that we could be placed into this world seamlessly and it would have been very questionable for a soldier in the N7 program to not know how to use and maintain his weapons. 'Raine could probably use basic tech skills and would 'know' whatever meditation techniques they would have 'taught' her.

I closed my medical file and opened the one labeled 'Service History'. I'd served with a military/scientist team under the designation of...wait...seriously? LK had to have been screwing with me.

My team was the Biological Specimen Acclimation Alliance. The frickin B.S.A.A.! Our primary mission was to protect a group of scientists whose job was creating any cures to rare illnesses that were cropping up among the human race at random intervals due to interaction with alien species. Thus assisting with safe acclimation and integration into alien environs. They were actually trying to work with the Council races on some of their own rare illnesses like Kepral's Syndrome for the Drell. It was an ambitious program actually.

I groaned and rubbed at my eyes though. If I ended up having to fight a B.O.W. or a Tyrant out here I was done. Bad enough we were going to be dealing with the ME version of zombies, Husks which could be pretty damn vicious depending on which species they originated from, but if there really ended up being an organization called Umbrella working on a 'T-virus' I was done, pack it up, grab 'Raine and hightail it to a world with no spacefaring life D.O.N.E. done.

I sighed and looked back over the file. I let out a soft laugh of amusement when I found that the BSAA was named purposefully as a joke because one of those in charge had been a fan of 'old school' zombie games, specifically Res Evil/Biohazard, but it's job was still rather serious despite the intended humor of the name.

My file showed that most of the time I and my team were on protection duty for the scientists while they worked on cures for said rare diseases and on occasion were attacked mid-route with a cure or their bases attacked to prevent them from actually making a cure successfully. My specific unit of four men had survived and successfully fought off numerous attacks on the scientists assigned to us. I'd then been nominated to the N7 program for courage under fire, our Captain having been disabled during the most recent fire fight. I'd kept my cool, got our Captain to cover and then successfully held off and then driven back the enemy forces, Eclipse, despite the heavy odds against us. And all without any loss of life of our team or the scientists we were there to protect. I'd been hailed as a tactical genius for that victory and promoted to Lieutenant Commander.

Currently I was training with three other nominees. Lucas Dundee from Australia, Sniper with extensive blade training and biotic expert. Jillian Ripley, technical engineer, well known for tactical placement of turrets and stealth attacks. And lastly Roco Chief, all around weapons expert and pilot/driver. All sitting at the rank of Lieutenant Commander like myself.

I looked around after closing my omni-tool and found that I was no longer wearing my Comic Con outfit but basic fatigues, my costume was instead hanging on a hanger from the top railing of the bunk bed. I stood and walked over to it, finding it in good condition. I reached into my pockets and found the tickets, only they were dated 2178. I blinked in surprise and did a quick extranet search and found that Comic Con did indeed still exist in this day and age for the ME universe. From what I could tell it looked like 'Raine and I had met up during my short shore leave allotted to me before starting up with my N7 training and before she went to get training from the Quarians.

I reached into my back pocket and felt that my wallet was still there. I pulled it out and found the funds for the trip still within. I blinked and then grinned wondering what the rate would be for old world money collectors wanting to buy almost mint condition twenty dollar bills. I opened my Omni-tool and started searching for a auction site as I left the room and my body instinctively followed the smell of fresh food cooking once I entered the hall.

I gave a soft, dark chuckle when I realised that the five hundred I had in twenties would net me almost four hundred thousand credits to a collector. Twenty-five twenty dollar bills, with each one alone being worth sixteen thousand credits. It was a damn sweet chunk of change considering from what I could tell one Credit would be the equivalent of one dollar. I looked over the shipping methods used and the process of collection for items and decided to follow that avenue of profit later, once I figured out where the local galactic post office was.

-=-=-=-=-=*-*-*-*-/*/*/*/*=-=-=-=-=-=-

I sat down to what I was assured would be one of the last 'good' home cooked meals I would have for the next year. Steak, well done with mashed potatoes and gravy and white corn. Ripley, Dundee and Chief were already there chowing down on their food. I sat down with my own plate and a cup of coffee and let out a soft sigh of content at the taste of the steak. Perfectly cooked.

"Heya mate, have ya heard?" Asked Dundee.

It took me a moment to realise he was talking to me and that the others were looking at me expectantly.

"Heard what?"

"The rumor is that the higher ups are switching around the N7 program a bit. New type of tactical training for us as a trial."

"Switching it around how?" I asked taking another bite of steak.

"Aliens." Ripley says in a dark voice. I raised a brow at her in surprise at the venom in her tone. "Like we need to learn their tactics."

"C'mon Rip! Don' be like that." Dundee said pointing his fork in her direction. "It'll be good training, we'll learn new things!"

"And whats wrong with the Human way of things?" She hissed back.

"He's not saying anything is wrong with our ways Ripley." I said in a firm, but gentle voice wanting to stop the animosity before it escalated. "Just that learning new tactics from another source can be useful. Such as learning Karate when you just know boxing, or boxing when you just know street fighting skills. They are different skills that can be used in different situations, but if you get into a situation where you know boxing but don't know Karate, you're going to get your ass handed to you. Having a wide range of skills, especially as N7, can come in handy regardless if it's tactical or hand to hand."

"Bah, we'll see. I still don't like it." Ripley turned back to viciously attack her food and ignored the rest of the group.

Glad to have shut her up for the moment, I have no real love of bigots and racists and their pointless anger towards entire groups of people. Pointless rage is pointless. Not to say that I wouldn't use their rage to my advantage as 'TIM', I would exploit it to the fullest and use their rage to further my own goals. As Cerberus was well know for it's 'for the good of humanity' standpoint it would be rather easy to keep that look going in order to get funding needed.

Some things weren't able to be changed. Jack escaped when she was a kid and looked to be in her mid twenties. From 2178 to 2185 when she was recruited by Shepard is only seven years. Even if she was only twenty, that leaves her sitting at thirteen years old right now. I blinked though when I realized that it was possible she was just now escaping the project, they never did tell us how old she was when she got away.

I sat back setting down my utensils and opening up my omni-tool. I typed a quick response to one of Lore Keeper's messages and then took a sip of my coffee. I got a response back just as I was taking a second sip. Good response time from her at least. I opened the message and raised a brow.

_-Jack escaped when she was eleven. She will be twenty-four in 2185 upon recruitment._

_-LK-_

I blinked at that, short and to the point. So Jack was seventeen now, good to know. And I have time to implement my plan for her if my Coup is successful. I fully intended to plant some 'old holo feed' into the base where she was held that will paint The Illusive Man in a better light. To give a direct impression that TIM had been planing on that facility being purely medical in nature and not military, meant to work on saving the lives of children exposed to eezo. TIM has most likely hundreds of programs being worked on, he can't check on all of them personally and even despite heavy background checks surely some wack-jobs would slip through the cracks. A few simple additions to that 'mission' would help Jack and hell, Shepard herself, look at TIM with a little more respect. The hard part was going to be 'cleaning house'. Since I wanted to paint Cerberus in a bit better of a light, volunteers for experiments instead of kidnapping or leading Alliance soldiers to their deaths, then that meant I was going to want to 'advise' the Alliance of those cells that have 'gone wrong'. That in itself would lead to dissension in the ranks if done poorly. Perhaps give them one single chance to 'shape up'?

"Attention!" shouted a voice from behind us jerking me out of my thoughts as, to my displeasure, I found myself standing as abruptly as the others at the shout .

LK had not only given me the muscle memory to use my weapons, but the instinctive muscle memory of a soldiers reactions to all situations. Damn but that was going to be annoying to get used to, I wasn't a natural military soldier and the disorientation because of a reaction like this could be detrimental if I didn't get a handle on it. Our N7 trainer moved over to stand at the table and there was a Turian standing next to him. I saw Ripley sneer for a moment before I glared at her, causing her to force her face into a neutral look.

"Alright recruits. You've all been chosen for one of the hardest military training regiments the Human race has. Unlike the other N training programs this isn't going to be the cake-walk you guys have been through before. Other training regiments have some safety measures in place, nets when climbing, concussive training rounds only, Medics on hand to immediately treat any and all wounds."

The Commander starts pacing back and forth during his speech and we all keep our eyes to the front. Suddenly he turned and shouted at us.

"NOT HERE! There will be LIVE rounds. If you fall you will NOT be caught by a net, you will break your BONES if not DIE from the fall. There will be no Medics until the training missions are COMPLETED and you have made it to the LZ!"

He stopped at the edge of the table again and placed his hands on the cold metal. He looked over each of us slowly before he stood straight again.

"If any of you wish to back out now you may. NO ONE will think poorly of you if you do so. That you were NOMINATED and ACCEPTED for this training regiment is one of the GREATEST honors a soldier can receive. Well?"

We all stayed standing and made no move to leave. He nodded slowly and grinned coldly at us.

"At ease men." We all relax a bit and turn to look at the Commander. "We've got a special assistant trainer with us today. One of the Galactic Councils Spectres will be helping me whip you lot into shape."

He waved his hand to the right indicating the turian, who now that I thought about it looked vaguely familiar with his white markings and now that I thought about it, how many turian Spectres existed besides him and Saren?

"This men, is Nihlus Kryik. He will be here to teach you non-human military tactics, fighting styles and will be assessing your skills during missions in order to instill a greater range of tactical planning in your pea-brained skulls. You respect him as you respect me is that clear?"

"Clear sir!" We all shouted.

Hm, Shepard was born around 2154, so she's 31 by Mass Effect 2, so when DID she complete N7 training? Was she already done with it? I really couldn't recall that ever being specified. Was Nihlus really here just to teach new tactics like the Commander said or was this the beginning of the review of humanity to see if we had Spectre potential? Check the recruits first and then move to those who completed the program? Well...either way, this was going to be interesting indeed.

-=-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-/*/*/*=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

And I was right, things were interesting. To start off with Nihlus challenged each of us to a one on one sparring match, no weapons but our own bodies allowed. Ripley was up first, the look on her face screaming that she wanted to teach Nihlus his place.

He let her last for a few moments, watching her punches and kicks closely but always moving out of the way. Finally he darted in during mid kick and lashed out with his own leg and used that spike on the back of his leg to hook her own leg and wrenched her off her feet. He was swift to disintangle himself and had her pinned to the ground in moments.

He stood, watching her carefully and then held out a hand to help her up as an offer of peace. She glared at his hand and stood on her own. Thankfully she didn't try anything after she stood and simply moved back to join the rest of us. Nihlus moved to an at ease postion and looked us over.

"For that move I, in essense, 'pulled my punch'." He looked at me. "Lieutenant Commander Mathias, how did I 'pull my punch'?"

I blinked for a moment, tilting my head as I thought about the situation, then I indicated the spike on the back of his leg.

"The spike sir. Even covered as you have it now, with enough force and at the right angle you could have stabbed it right into her leg, not just bringing her to the ground but wounding her in a way where she would not get up easily, or if you hit the artery in the lower leg she would be disabled by bloodloss or distracted by trying to stop the bloodloss and thus open to a final blow."

"Very good LT Cdr, very good." He nodded and started to pace slowly in front of us. "Most battles are fought at a distance with ships or guns, very few humans during the First Contact war actually fought with us in hand to hand combat and many of those who did fell prey to the very move I just used. I am here at the Councils behalf to try to instill a greater sense of respect and unity for our spieces, to quell any lingering hatred caused by that War. I've been told you are the very best recruits to have completed the N6 program, some of the highest scores possible. I and Commander Rodgers aim to see you match or surpass the highest N7 score, currently held by one Commander Shepard. Mathias, get up here!"

Oh fun. My turn.

-=-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-/*/*/*=-=-=-=-=-

And that went about as well as I expected. I knew some basic fighting skills from my own world and they clashed with the muscle memory my body now had. I managed to dodge the same move that laid Ripley out but I was knocked on my ass faster then Ripley because I went to dodge a punch by dropping down and nailing Nihlus in the stomach but my body wanted to dodge left instead. The miscommunication between brain and body caused me to pause for a moment in my movement, which left me open to the right hook that laid me flat.

I was praised for managing to dodge the 'hook' attack by Nihlus but was laid into by Commander Rodgers for the hesitation. I got to do twenty reps of push-ups while Nihlus fought the others. Surprisingly it was Chief who lasted the longest at almost five minutes before he slipped up, over extending himself in an attack.

We were told that tomorrow we would be taken to an uninhabited jungle world for a 'mock' mission. We were advised again of the seriousness of the mechs we would be facing and the fact they would be using live ammo. Commander Rodgers would track us from shuttle above while Nihlus would be on site.

They also made me the one in charge for the mission.

Shit...

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Yay!

REview!

Can anyone tell me the importance I placed in his fellow trainees names?


	5. Chapter 5

yay next chappie!

I know it might be a bit much going through the 'backgrounds' that were created but I'm trying to make this go a little smoother then just being tossed into the MEverse with no background. C-sec and everyone else would be a little concerned if someone that 'doesn't exist' showed up, ya know?

Also you'll note the chapters are coming out pretty fast. I tend to write in spurts and it's hard to sit on a finished chapter :-P

Enjoy!

Edit: updated 7/16/13 due to missing components to the 'Cog abilites. sorry bout that folks!

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Chapter 4: Experiencing Technical Difficulties. 'Raine POV.

-Begin secondary audio log-

"I'd say your own time getting used to things went rougher then mine." A soft laugh. "That jump to attention without wanting to, would have made me trip if I'd tried to fight it. The worst I had to deal with was an Idiot of Epic proportions."

"You held yourself well against that bigots attitude, I will say that."

"Wasn't going to give him any ammunition. Besides, Tali took care of it when he went too far, even though it hurt her to do so."

"I heard..."

-End secondary audio log-

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I woke up to the hum of an engine.

I sat up slowly and groaned from residue pain and rubbed at my eyes. Blinking I looked around the room and then frowned. Oh not at the sight of the cabin around me, not at the sight of a packed suitcase, but at the lack of a grimy feeling in my eyes. If you have ever worn contacts you know that if you fall asleep while still wearing them they tend to get a gummy, grimy feeling to them and you have to remove them and clean them to get rid of that sensation, and removing them can be a bitch.

I stood up and made my way to the small mirror in the cabin and leaned in close to try to see if I could make out the faint 'line' of the contact. Nothing. Also my eyes weren't all red from sleeping with my contacts in. I looked around the room once more and everything was in sharp relief. I blinked and then laughed softly. I could see. Without any aid I could see.

I let out another little laugh and bounced on my toes for a moment. Then bursting into giggles I spun in a circle and bounced again. I could see! Holy shit I could SEE! I spent several moments just bouncing up and down and looking around the room in joy.

I heard a beeping sound and looked around, still bouncing on my toes. Not finding anything obvious like an alarm or a clock I shrugged and pushed my hair back behind my ear. Another beep sounded, this time close to my ear and I looked at my wrist. Oh right! The Omni-tool! Well I felt silly.

I opened up the 'tool and saw that I had several messages. One was labeled 'Medical', one 'Background', both of those from an 'LK' and the other was 'Heya!' from a Falare. I blinked at the last message and decided to look at it first.

_-Hey there Pinky!_

_Hope your trip to Earth went well. The costume you got was very fetching, almost Asari in design. You probably turned a lot of heads, though I doubt if you'd noticed you silly, sweet thing. You were probably focused on your Army Man. You said he'd had a surprise for you, did he finally 'pop the question'? You better send me a picture of the ring if so! Human culture is so fascinating!_

_Did he ever tell you how long he was going to be in the N7 program? Hopefully it wont be years until you can see him again. I know what it's like waiting years between visits from family. At least I've got my sister with me at the monastery but with mothers job she can only visit so often._

_How are your cog' abilities treating you now that you're able to travel? No more freezes? Wish I could have come with you but life here is good so I shouldn't complain._

_You better tell me how it goes on the Quarian ships! If any of them are rude you let me know and I'll send them a blistering message!...I'd say I'd come kick their suited asses but yeah, stuck here. 'Lol' as I believe you'd say?_

_Anyway take care, and remember...Pictures!_

_Your Friendly Blue Bird.-_

I blinked after reading the message and the read it again. Unsure of how to respond I backed out and went to the background message from LK. A lot of things stayed the same it seemed, I was adopted by two very loving parents, raised on Earth, my childhood was still the same which caused me to wince as a certain...'event' still happened but had been dealt with a little more swiftly at least.

I started showing signs of my cognitive abilities at around fourteen when I hit puberty, late bloomer, and my parents and I were at a museum when I'd had my first 'attack'. I'd touched a suit of armor on display, ignoring the 'do not touch' signs, and then 'froze', my body becoming paralyzed. I'd 'seen' the details of the knights bloody past and had broken down afterwards when I could move again.

After many medical tests the doctors found nothing wrong with me, no disease or brain issue that would cause a seizure, which is what they were sure it was, and we were sent home wondering what was wrong with me. After several more random attacks, each time resulting because I'd had a 'Vision' after touching an older artifact, my parents started searching amongst the other races for some sort of similar condition.

They lucked out with the Asari, the background said. It was a very rare touch cognitive ability that allowed for some Asari to see into the past of an object or person and even rarer see a possible future. The ability was a little wonky though when touching a dead body as you got to 'see' and 'hear' persons last moments from their point of view.

This ability was was followed by a genetic disorder for the asari that cut their lifespan down to only two-hundred years. Most with this ability trained with old matriarchs to control the visions through melding so they could still move or react, essentially through the meld partitioning their mind so that a portion of their mind could 'see' the vision and the rest would keep control of the body. Essentially that partioned portion of the mind acted as a storage point for the visions and could be accessed in full detail at a later time.

Some though had to learn meditative skills and avoid melding as the melding process could be painful for the one with cognitive abilities and this pain would restrict the afflicted Asari from being able to perform a mating meld or any meld. Not quite as bad a level as what would happen if someone tried to meld with an Ardat Yakshi, it was the one with the condition that felt the pain. Overall though a really painful situation if you were one of the unlucky few.

Contacting an Asari matriarch they were able to get me an appointment to test if I had the same sort of ability since my symptoms matched up. Turns out though that I was one of those who couldn't meld so they'd had to go with teaching me the meditative methods to give me the control I 'needed' to live a 'normal' life. The only place who still knew how to practice those meditative techniques though, were at the Ardat Yakshi Monastery. I'd gotten my training there and then in order to follow my dream of becoming a ship tech I'd requested of the Quarians to learn from them.

Well that explained the letter, in a way. Falare was one of those at the monastery, and if my hunch was right she might very well be Samara's daughter. I penned back a basic response to Falare, asking her if she knew how her mother was and other basic questions. Looking over my hand I saw my engagement ring was still there. Now Lucian had proposed to me about a month back but apparently here it would have been just a few days back. I looked back through the Omni-tool tutorial and then snapped a quick image of the ring, a nice simple white gold band with a simple small white diamond, I hated flashy jewelry and Lucian had kept that in mind, and then I sent the image along with the responding message off to Falare. Really the entire background history given to me was fascinating and was worth a read or two.

I then skimmed my medical history, glad to see no sign of my kidney stone issue, long since cured in humans with simple genetic treatments. Eye sight was improved, which I was grateful for. I would have dug further into the file but a louder beep sounded through the room.

"We'll be docking with the Quarians live ship in just a few moments." Said a pleasant female voice. "Please have your bags packed and ready for departure. Thank you for flying Orion and have a good day!"

I stood and walked over to where my suit case, I assumed it was mine anyway. Opening it up I found my costume neatly folded inside, Orihime's outfit from when she was stuck in Los Noches, along with a few basic change of clothes, various toiletries and my camera. I blinked in surprise and then carefully moved the camera to one of the smaller pockets to hide it as it was probably worth quite a bit at this point.

Closing the suitcase back up I stood and left the room. There were two other Quarians, both male and both talking adamantly to each other and showing each other some random bits of tech, probably just returning from their pilgrimage and one official looking turian standing to the side with what seemed to be an annoyed look, smaller suitcases sat at each of their sides.

"Keelah! I didn't know we had a human passenger on board!" said one of the quarians and all three of my fellow passengers turned to look at me.

"Um...hi?" I said with a nervous smile.

"Why are you on this trip?" The turian asked suspiciously.

"Ah..." It took me a moment to recall my 'background' while under the turians glare. "Here to learn from the best techs and mechanics in the galaxy!" I responded with a hesitant smile.

"Um...why aren't you going to a salarian outpost or something, then?" Asked the other quarian, voice a little higher in pitch.

"Why? They are primarily geneticists, not tech specialists. Ask them to jury-rig a newer ship with older tech or vice-versa in a pinch and they'd say it couldn't be done!" I waved a hand toward the two quarians. "You guys would get the ship up and running in no time!"

Both quarians stood a little taller at my words while the turian raised an eye...ridge?...in surprise.

"Most people just see quarians as beggars." The turian said obviously testing my response.

"Yeah, they're idiots and bigots." I scoffed. "Their loss is my gain. Being a true tech specialist means finding a way to mesh the tech you have in a way that works, not just building fancy new things. Maintainance is the key, and keeping the old girls in the fleet running this long? That's skill."

All three of them nodded and the pilots announcement of arrival cut off any further questions. Holding my suitcase tight I followed after the other three into the docking bay of the quarian ship. I overheard the turian gently scolding the two quarian males about not getting into any more trouble and to behave themselves before he got back onto the Orion travelling ship. He was followed shortly there after by three other young quarians clustered together and getting farewells from some taller family members, or at least I assumed they were family. I had to bite back a laugh thinking that the kind turian was about to find himself acting as a babysitter again from the look of things.

I stopped just a little ways away from the docking doors and looked around, bouncing on my toes again. The messages from LK didn't mention that I would be meeting anyone in particular. I looked back to watch the ship leave through the view ports and thus was taken by surprise when I heard a voice from behind me.

"Lorraine Kuhlmeyer?" The voice was an older female voice.

I spun around dropping my suitcase on my foot and letting out a pained yelp. Thankfully it didn't burst open so I simply bent down to pick it up and waved off the quarians apologies.

"Yeah, I'm 'Raine." Now that I thought about it the females suit looked familiar to me. My eyes widened a bit as I realized who was sent to greet me and my assumption was confirmed a moment later.

"Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay, I'm here to welcome you to the Quarian Fleet and show you around the liveship that will be your home for the next few years."

She held out her hand to me and I quickly reached out to shake it. I grinned happily.

"Ma'am, a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine dear. It's not often other races wish to learn of our ways." She started to lead me out of the docking bay. "You will be living here and training with several of our own youngsters."

"So I'll be, by your people's ways, 'Raine nar...or vas...?" Trying to get the ships name.

"You are an adult by your own people's standards, but if you wish to adopt our own for your training you will be 'nar' Rayya since you are just beginning to learn our ways and the Rayya will be acting as your 'Parent' ship."

"Oh, cool...wait!" I froze and stared in surprise at Shala'Raan. "Rayya? The Rayya? This is the Rayya?!"

"Yes, is that a problem?" Shala'Raan tilted her head a bit looking at me.

"No! No problem Admiral ma'am! It just the ship I'd ask for if I'd had a choice!" I bounced on my toes again and grinned at her happily which caused her to laugh.

"I'm very glad we were able to accommodate then, I hadn't known you'd had a specific ship in mind. This way then to your room, you will be bunking with two others who match your current level of technical skills."

-=-=-=-=-=/*/*/*-*-*-*/*/*/*=-=-=-=-=-

Getting settled in was easy enough. The bunks in the room showed two clearly in use with the blankets rumpled and little pictures and old toy figurines sitting on or around the beds. I had to hope for a long moment that my own tech skills weren't par with actual children and set my suitcase down on the untouched bed.

Opening back up my Omni-tool I looked it over for any basic hacking programs and found one already installed to my relief. Grinning I looked it over and found it had a tutorial function. Popping it open I almost burst into laughter, the hacking programs were literally like the 'mini games' from the ME series.

I went through a few practice 'hacks' to test my skills and speed and found that I could go through them pretty easily. Looking over some of the information in the tutorials, young techs just learning and those up to 'hard level' skills used these programs to hack terminals, access and fix coding problems, etc., it took a truly brilliant tech, I was guessing that you'd want to be at 'legendary level', to be able to hack into a system without using a hacking program in order to access and modify systems or to build the programs that most techs used.

I found it highly amusing that the ME mini games were actually showing us what would be 'real life' applications to help make hacking easy for those in the ME universe. Which meant that by ME3 when Shepard did any hacking she'd actually passed into that level where she wouldn't need the hack apps! So THAT'S what she'd been up to when she was under house arrest for almost a year! Made sense now that I thought about it. She had to have been bored to tears.

I kept up the practice hacks and found that with timing and everything I was sitting at 'intermediate' level. The 'hard' levels just didn't give me enough time and moved too quickly. I was just about to try to make another attempt when the door opened and two quarians, one male and one female entered the room in an almost aggressive silence. I blinked and looked at the two curiously. The male took notice of me first and gave a jump, which looked to be exaggerated. My thoughts were confirmed as soon as he started talking.

"Keelah! Why is there a Det Kazuat in our room?!"

"Funny," I said, keeping my voice bland as the female rounded on the male pointing one finger in his direction. "the only 'living sack of excrement' I see just magically walked into the room."

Whatever the female was going to say was overtaken by a fit of laughter on her part as she sat down abruptly on the bottom bunk bed, arms wrapped around her middle. The male just stood their staring at me and I could tell due to the lighting from his mask that his mouth was hanging open in shock. He obviously wasn't expecting me to know anything about their language. I loved the Quarians (save for what they did to the Geth) in the MEverse, a fascinating culture and the first thing I'd done was see if EA had set up any other insults other then Bosh'tet. Heck thats the first rule I follow when trying to learn any language, know the insults first.

I tried to keep my expression clear of the smuggness I was feeling but knew that I failed as I could feel my lips twitching into a smirk. The female quarian gave another laugh before waving her hand.

"Ah, ignore him, he's an idiot. Wouldn't know a good thing for our people if it came and bit him on his rear. I don't know how he's going to survive his pilgrimage." I looked at the female, eyes widening, ignoring Rhys'til's indignant 'Hey!'. No way...I know that voice. There was no way.

"I'm Tali'zorah nar Rayya, this Bosh'tet is Rhys'til nar Rayya. Pleased to meet you." Tali held out her hand and I shook it with a grin trying to contain my excitment.

"Lorraine Kuhlmeyer, while I'm here though just call me 'Raine nar Rayya."

"Why in the world would we call you by our ship name?" Rhys'til hissed. Tali looked curious about that as well. I squared my shoulders and looked at Rhys'til firmly.

"I am here learning not only tech skills and hacking skills, I will also be learning your ways and culture because I want to know more about your people. As I sign of respect that I am merely a child to your ways, and the Rayya while be the ship teaching me said ways thus being my 'parent ship', I have asked to adopt the ship name and be known as 'Raine nar Rayya, Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay herself gave the okay."

"Really? Auntie 'Raan gave the okay?" Tali said in amazement. "That's...wow."

"Lies." Hissed Rhys'til. "None of our Admirals would agree to such blasphemy."

Without another word he stalked to the bunk beds and climbed into the top bunk. He turned away from us and laid down with a grumble. Tali sighed softly and waved her hand.

"I'm sorry about him." She said softly.

"Eh, it's ok." I said just as softly. "There are bigots in every species, it's not really a surprise. At least he's not all, 'Ah! Human! Kill!' right?"

Tali giggled again and shifted on the bed a bit. She then glanced up at the upper bunk and waved toward the door.

"He's going to sulk like that for a while, have you been shown around?"

"Just the basics, medbay, mess hall and here." I shrugged.

"Ah, the boring spots, I'll show you around the best places. By the way, what are you doing for food?"

"MREs, Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Got quite a few stored thanks to Admiral Shala'Raan apparently."

"Oh that's good. At least you don't have to eat flavored paste."

"Sometimes I think I'd rather have paste." I made a face at her. "They don't taste all that great you know."

She laughed and then indicated for me to follow her. I thought about it for a moment and then nodded. We both stood and left the room as quietly as we could. She took a right and led me down several twists and turns. I shook my head and tried to get a feeling of which way we were going when I noticed the hum getting louder.

"Is that the engine?" I asked.

"Yep, toward the back of the ship, that's what I want to show you. Is this the first time living on a ship?"

"Yeah, used to living on solid ground."

"Ah, if you get lost then always use the engine as your starting point. The mess is closer toward the front of the ship then it is toward the back, the med bay closer to the engine itself our rooms right in the middle. Mind you that's when your on this level. Since we're still younglings though we don't go onto the other levels all that much save for schooling and the like, that's on level seventy-seven though."

"And we are on level...?"

"Sixty-nine."

"Alright Sixty...Wait a sec you're pulling my leg!" I gave her a mock glare and she stopped, looking at me in surprise or what I assumed was surprise judging by her body language.

"What do you mean? 'Pulling your leg'?"

"Messing with me, joking around, pranking me." I waved my hand. "Pulling my leg pretty much means all that. You said we're on level sixty-nine?"

"Yes," Tali said slowly. "We are a liveship, this ship alone has ninety levels, most of them for growing crops and housing families. We have a small security force, but it's more of a token force then anything. Levels sixty through seventy are mainly used for older children preparing for their pilgrimage, those between sixteen and twenty-one. There are actually multiple 'mess halls' set up on various levels for the different groups."

"Ah, give a level of freedom to the 'teens away from the parents but still able to visit." I nodded a bit at that. "Makes sense."

"So...Sixty-nine?" Tali asks hesitantly, instinctually fearing my answer. I grinned and rubbed at that back of my neck.

"Ah...Sixty-nine is a human reference to a...sexual position." I said, knowing that I was blushing bright red.

"Keelah!" Tali yelped in shock causing me to laugh.

-=-=-=-=*-/*/*/*-*/-/*-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Things went smoothly for the most part for several days. I was given a quarian style suit, minus the helmet, by Admiral 'Raan and it fit like a glove. The worst problem though was Rhys'til. He wouldn't talk to me for the most part, even when I was trying to ask a few friendly questions. Any time he did talk to me only centered on throwing insults my way. I ignored him for the most part or on occasion asked it he thought calling me random insults helped him feel like a big boy. He didn't like those responses, obviously he wanted me to react like the animal he figured I was. After a while I just stopped trying to be nice.

Tali was great though. She taught me a lot of things about life on the Flotilla that was only hinted at in game. She showed me the families with children too young for suits and I felt a pang of pity that I struggled to hide, knowing that it wouldn't be appreciated. The youngsters were all milling about in special little habitat balls, similar to what some human children in my own dimension had to live in due to immune deficiencies. Oh I know Tali said that getting a suit was a big thing, you were able to leave that habitat ball, but to have that be your life, always stuck in a ball or a suit or else you would get sick and die? The Quarians truly were a hardy people to live like this.

I wanted so badly to tell Tali or someone else about the truth behind the Geth, but I knew no one would believe me. I wouldn't have a chance to go over why the Quarians were chased off their home world until Legion showed up during ME2. It hurt in a way, knowing what I did but not being able to act right away to help the two races reconcile, even if I could there was no immediate way to differentiate between a True Geth and a Heritic Geth. All I could try to do was question and lay seeds of doubt about the Geth nature, but even that had to be oh so carefully done that I wasn't sure I'd be able to manage it.

Tali noticed my melancholy one day and asked me what was wrong.

"It's nothing really. I was just looking over your history, you know with the Geth and all? There's so much information that's...well honestly it's just not there."

"What do you mean?" Tali said, sitting down beside me as I looked over a data pad that had their history listed in it. Right now I was looking over battle history with the Geth, unlike other cultures with a military it didn't look like they had very many classified missions. Any one Quarian could access missions not in progress if they wanted to see what had happened, but the files themselves only went back so far.

"Well, even now you don't have much interaction with the Geth unless you try to go back to your home system." I pointed to the data pad. "Mostly your people just seem to be chased back out, casualties due to suit breaches, but the ships are repairable only damaged to the point where you must retreat for repairs but never damaged to the point where the ship can't retreat. Why don't the Geth finish the ships off? Pursuit always stops when the ships are out of the system. Why? Why stop when they are winning?"

"The Geth are rogue AI 'Raine." Tali said softly. "Who knows what they 'think', who cares, it's enough to know that they attacked us and that they need to be stopped."

"But why did they attack? There is almost no recorded knowledge left from the Mor...War itself." I almost let slip what the Geth called the war. Closing the data pad I sighed and rubbed my forehead. "I like history, it's interesting. But this is a puzzle with missing pieces, I can't see the whole picture and that bothers me."

"Let it go, 'Raine." Tali patted my shoulder lightly. "It happened centuries ago, what does it matter now? Come on, training starts today, weapons first and then hacking, it'll be just the thing to get this off your mind!"

I watched as she left the room and the door closed behind her. I set the data pad down on my bunk and stood up slowly.

"It matters Tali," I muttered to myself. "it matters."

I followed after her.

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Our teacher was a weapons and technical expert from one of the other ships. He stood a few inches taller then us, I actually fit in nicely height wise. I had to bite my lip to hold back a giggle when he introduced himself though.

"I am Kel'el vas Qwib Qwib." Said the taller male. "I'm here to teach you the technical, engineering, hacking and gunmanship you will need to survive."

He indicated the table in front of him which held different model guns.

"Each of you at this point should have received training on how to handle a basic pistol or heavy pistol from your parents or guardians." He looked at me at the last before walking over to the table. "Now we will provide you with specialized training if you would like."

"I'm fine for the most part with my pistol." Tali said tentatively. "But I've always wanted to learn how to use a shotgun."

"The trick with a shotgun is not the recoil as much as it is about controlling the spread of fire." He picked up the shotgun and it extended out of it's 'sleep mode'. He then turned and fired a shot at a group of dummies along the wall that I hadn't noticed. The noise was loud in the small space, but not to the point where it damaged my hearing, more that it made me jump and yelp, same with Tali. Rhys'til jumped as well but managed to keep quiet trying to pretend he wasn't affected by the sudden noise as Kel'el turned around.

"Different shotguns can have a different rate of spread. Notice that only the three dummies in the middle show major damage while the outside dummies only show superficial damage. Shotguns are primarily for driving back numerous enemies that have gotten too close. 'Raine nar Rayya, your choice?" His visored gaze fell on me causing me to shift nervously.

"S-sniper rifle, sir." It was my weapon of choice for any FPS game.

He nodded and picked up the Sniper rifle on the table. He hefted it as it extended out, bracing it against his shoulder.

"Your scope will automatically assist by providing any necessary wind speed information. Some scopes can even assist with seeing through smoke screens, although those scopes are expensive. Recoil is a main factor now for a sniper." Even though the dummies were relatively close he fired off a shot at the furthest dummy, blowing it's head clean off. "If you are not prepared for the recoil of the rifle you will miss every time."

"Um...sir?" I said hesitantly, realizing something.

"Yes?"

"What's stopping the ricochet?" I asked.

He laughed and waved the three of us over so he could indicate the wall itself. He tapped on one spot and looking close I saw that the bullet was trapped in a small blue field.

"Using a mass effect generator one can create a 'wall' that gives a similar effect to a biotic's Stasis ability. It's limited and there is currently no way to mobilize the tech, also the generator itself is bulky." He pointed to a huge quietly running generator that I'd mistaken for a crate.

"The field itself is also limited in size." Another gesture that indicated the wiring that wrapped around the wall that the dummies stood in front of.

"Limited in size, immobile and only works for limited amounts of fire. Twenty shots and the generator is overwhelmed and put through a cooling mode for ten minutes. Useless for engagement in battle but perfect for a practice range."

"Nifty. If someone could modify that it would make a great pilgrimage gift" I said looking over the generator with Tali.

Rhys'til just scoffed and moved back over to the weapons. He picked up the other Sniper rifle and flashed a look at me. I could tell by the way his eyes narrowed and the aggressive stance of his body he was either glaring or sneering at me. Really I wish they didn't have the smokey face masks sometimes.

"I'll show you how a real Sniper works, von." He raised the rifle to his shoulder and Kel'el simply crossed his arms, I could just make out a grin through the face mask. I turned to focus on Rhys'til and gave him an extremely sweet smile.

"Seriously, that's the best insult you have? 'One who has a weak bladder'?"

"Shut up!"

He turned back to the dummies and aimed. I'll have to admit I was surprised, he managed a headshot. However he also landed himself flat on his ass as he wasn't prepared for the rifles severe recoil. He let out a wail and grabbed his right arm. While I didn't like him, I didn't want to really see him hurt either and I rushed over with Tali to try and check if he was ok. Kel'el followed at a more sedate pace. I opened up my omni-tool and searched for a medical app. Finding one pre-installed (thank you LK!), I followed the steps to run a quick scan on his shoulder. I let out a soft sigh of relief at the easy to read results.

"Just a bruised shoulder from the look of it. Nothing broken or fractured...at least if I'm reading this right."

Kel'el bent down and looked at my omni-tool. I shifted it so he could get a better look and he nodded giving my shoulder a gentle pat.

"About what I expected. The HMWSR Master Sniper Rifle an exceptionally powerful rifle. The more powerful a rifle the stronger the recoil. Learn from his mistake."

I nodded in response.

"Honestly you stupid Bosh'tet," Tali said in friendly exasperation as she and I helped Rhys'til to stand. "why do you have to be a show-off?"

Rhys'til pulled free of both of us roughly and rounded on me.

"I don't need the help of some Ish'ti!" He snapped viciously.

Tali and Kel'el both stiffened and started to radiate rage. 'Ish'ti' was not a word I'd heard before. I know 'Bosh'tet' pretty much was an all around 'idiot/jerk/ass' sort of insult but what the hell was 'Ish'ti'?

Tali surprised me by lunging forward and shoving Rhys'til against the wall, ignoring his injured shoulder. She kept her arm under his chin, pressing hard against his neck and starting talking to him in an angry tone so soft I couldn't really understand her. I tried to move forward only to have Kel'el stop me and shake his head.

"No, let her say what needs to be said." His voice was angry, but controlled.

"What did he say that was so bad?" I asked quietly.

"To call someone an 'Ish'ti'...the literal translation would be...'one who enjoys the company of animals'..."

"That's..." I blinked in surprise. "That's meant in a sexual manner isn't it?"

"Yes."

Talis voice rose suddenly, a vicious whip of words that drew my attention.

"I don't care if we've been friends since we were kids. All she's trying to do is learn our ways. She's been nice, kind and respectful the entire time! If this was the olden days I'd be sorely tempted to call Reck'kril on you!"

I leaned close to Kel'el and spoke at a whisper. "'Reck'kril'?"

"'Battle of Honor'." He responded also at a whisper. "Old style fight to the death to defend the honor of friend or family."

"But...she's known me for less then a week!"

"No one uses that insult any longer, it's considered taboo. The fact that he knows it at all means a very long talk with his parents and the Admiralty Board. He's lucky he's pre-pilgrimage, otherwise he would risk exile, as it is his parents just might. We can't afford the level of discord associated with that word on a ship because of the level of hatred in those who would use it. It's been years since I last heard that insult, I was just a child at the time. The Captain who used that word in that case tried to kill a member of his crew because she fell in love with an Asari, he felt she was a traitor to her kind. He was Exiled for his actions." His voice was dark with displeasure. My eyes widened in surprise, that was...bad.

"Tali...I...She's just a human!" Rhys'til croaked out.

"I. Don't. Care! You are to NEVER repeat that word or I will Kick you out the nearest airlock myself!"

With that she let him fall to the floor and walked over to me. Grabbing my arm and nodding to Kel'el she dragged me from the practice range and back to our rooms. Next she went to Rhys'til's bunk and started yanking off all the tools, toys and data pads and tossed them out the door violently.

"Tali...if he's a childhood friend...I've only been here a week, I don't want to come...whoa!...between you too." I had to dodge a data pad as I finished.

"Not your fault." Tali said, her voice filled with sorrow. "That he said that at all, that he even thought it about you, means he was never my friend. He's nothing but a bigotted Bosh'tet."

She slumped suddenly and slid off the top bunk to sit down on the lower one holding a small holo pad in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking and I knew she was crying. I slowly sat down beside her and carefully tried to draw her into a hug. She turned into my hug and clung to me tightly. I looked down at the holo and saw an image of what I assumed was her and Rhys'til as little kids in little suits, their families behind them and their habitat balls to the side. Obviously they had just had their celebration in getting their new suits.

They truely had been the best of friends. I felt guilt flare up.

"I should never have come here..." I said sorrowfully as I tried to stand up. Tali tightened her hold on me.

"D-don't you DARE say that." She said in a tear filled voice. "His stupid hatred is not your fault."

"Maybe...he'll learn his lesson?" I said, trying to sound cheerful but knowing I failed. "I hope he apologizes. I don't want you to lose a friend because of me."

"Even if he does it will take time to forgive him." She said softly. She let me go and curled up on her bunk bed. I moved to my own and sighed. Looking at my Omni-tool I saw Lucian's name as registering 'online' and penned a quick message to him. I kept it as light hearted as possible and hoped he would respond soon. I ended it with the excuse of having to try out a hacking program with the actual intent of going straight to bed to excuse why I wouldn't be able to respond right away. I was surprised to get a message ping only a few moments later from him, I'd really expected him to be busy with...whatever.

_-Hey Little Light,_

_Just arrived myself. At a military bunker of some sorts for N7 training, I'll tell you more when I find out. If this Rhys'til gives you any more trouble you let me know, I'll send him an image of me in full armor to terrify him into behaving if I have to._

_I take it that there was a lot of bouncing when you met Tali? Can't believe I missed that! Ah, now your blushing aren't you?-_

_I was indeed, he knew me so well. I smiled faintly and went back to the letter_

_-Trained at the Ardat Yakshi Temple eh? That may be useful down the line, especially if you're supposed to be friends with that Falere. Try to keep up the friendship, it's good to have more then a few friends here, don't isolate yourself like you normally do._

_I've got to go meet up with my fellow N7 trainees and get an idea of what I'm in for._

_I love you Little Light.-_

I laughed softly at the letter, glad he answered it so quickly. I wished I could talk to him directly but didn't know how to set up a vid call just yet, plus if he was going to start training soon I didn't want to get him into trouble with any instructor. Hopefully we would be able to talk again soon.

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Yay! Wow this is my longest one so far!

REview!


	6. Chapter 6

yay next chappie!

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Chapter 5: FUBAR. Lucian POV.

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I'd spent some of my down time sparring with Chief and getting used to my new reflexes. Even after an hour or so of sparring though, I still found myself hesitating as I fought to control my own body. Having the reflexes were good in a way, but it was MY body and it would follow MY mental orders. Finally fed up with the issue I called it a night and headed back toward mine and Dundee's room.

I plopped down onto the bed and opened my omni'tool to review my background again. It was simplistic and dull and I'd only skimmed through it the first time to get an idea of where I was and what I was supposed to be doing. What I was interested in now was if I had any family obligations to watch out for. I finally found the part on family history and started reading it a little more thoroughly. I'd had a mother and three siblings, just like where I was from. We lived on an outskirt colony called Zion with only a populace of one hundred. I'd gone into Alliance service at eighteen.

The background showed a holo of my family and they looked exactly like my own, only a little happier. My mother, in my world, has bone degeneration so I had to help raise my siblings, acting not only as older brother but also as surrogate father. Mom was always in pain. This image showed her happy, pain free and without her usual pained slouch. I wondered what things would have been like. Would I have liked living on the colony? Would my siblings have liked it? What would it have been like not having to take over sometimes and being the parent because mom couldn't function past the pain?

I felt a pang of longing fill me as I looked over the image of 'my family'. I wished for a long moment that the Lore Keeper had given me memories to go with my new life. I longed to know what it would have been like to have a healthy mother. To be the protected instead of having to protect my younger siblings and help my mother out since early childhood. I shook my head with a sigh, as much as this world would say 'this is your life' it wasn't truly MY life. And it was going to take time to get used to that.

Looking further into the background, I saw that a year after I'd completed N1 training the colony had come under attack by batarian raiders. I stiffed and sat straight up at that. Most batarian raiders were looking for slaves! What if they were taken? Reading further I slowly relaxed, but found myself no less upset. The entire colony put up a fight long enough for Alliance ships to arrive, casualties were high but no one had been taken by the batarians. 'My' mother and siblings were a part of the casualty list.

Convenient of the Lore Keeper, to insure that both I and 'Raine would have no family to turn to. Even if it wasn't our 'real' families, having a relative to talk to, to rely on, for 'Raine at least, would have been nice. It was cold and calculating, if we failed no one would notice, no one would truly mourn for us save for the people we made friends with, and she could potentially look for another 'hero' personality and 'necessary' personality to fix the damage her d-hopper was causing.

I growled softly, feeling anger build within me, I didn't like the thought of being just another little pawn on her chessboard. I turned off my Omni-tool and laid down for the night. One day at a time Mathias, one day at a time.

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

I woke the next day to the alarm and tried to reach out and hit the snooze button. My hand slapped uselessly against a table and no amount of scrounging for the clock revealed anything. Poking my head out from under my pillow I looked for the alarm and saw nothing. Confusion filled my sleep addled brain and I looked around the room not really recognizing anything. It took a few moments but seeing Dundee quickly getting dressed in combat armor brought everything, comic-con, the Lore Keeper, the deal, back and I recalled where and when I was.

I let out a soft groan and got out of bed, not wanting to get up just yet. My bodies 'autopilot' took over for several minutes and made my bed swiftly, brushed my teeth and I was in my combat armor before I even really registered everything I'd done. When I was finally fully aware I was sitting in the mess hall with a bagel in one hand and a cup of piss poor coffee in the other. I blinked and then swore under my breath when I realized I'd lost control of my movements again.

"Heya, look who's finally aware of the world!" Dundee's voice was cheerfully, annoyingly loud. I glared at him and took a bit of the bagel.

"When you said he wasn't a morning person Dundee I didn't realize it was this bad. He's been on autopilot for about thirty minutes." Said Chief in surprise and some worry, my glare turned his direction.

"Hey now mate, no need to go krogan on us." Dundee said with a laugh at my glare and then looked at Chief and Ripley who were both eyeing me warily. "What we could do is set the alarm to sound gunfire, don't suggest actually doing it but he's up and ready with a gun damn quick then, hand t' God."

I grunted at that and sipped at the coffee, didn't taste much better the second time around. I looked at Dundee and wondered for a moment how long I'd known the guy that he knew me that well. I tilted my head and then nodded waving my hand slightly at him in a 'go ahead' gesture. Maybe that would clue him in to tell them something about our apparent friendship and I could clue in on what level of friendship I had with the aussie.

"Known Mathias here for about a year. Damn good shot and a good man to have on your six. Keep to yourself mostly don't you big guy?" I grunted in response, still unsure of how to respond to him. "Only thing is he is grumpy as hell early mornings, least until he gets his first cup." He indicated the coffee in my hand. "Thing is if he wakes up to gunfire, first thing he grabs is his gun and next to find cover, good instincts. One of the team, a prankster named Wolfe, thought pranked him once with the alarm bit during N6 training would be funny. Caused him to pull his gun, find cover and then move out of cover to take fire at 'the enemy'."

Dundee paused for dramatic effect and the other two leaned forward eagerly. I rolled my eyes at his antics.

"The only thing was the 'enemy' that was coming into the room was our N6 trainer Corp. Jackson. Lucky he didn't have a weapon on him and that the first thing he did was raise his hands to show he was unarmed and harmless otherwise I think Mathias woulda taken the shot." He took a bit of his food and then pointed his fork at me. "Never thought a human could go 'bloodrage' until then, he lit into Wolfe for causing him to pull a gun on his superior, took all of us, including the Corp. to pull Mathias off 'em."

I actually flinched at that. I was normally known for being calm and collected, I hardly ever lost my temper. On rare occasion though I've faced situations that have pissed off so badly that I'd actually purposefully get into a fight, mind you I normally make sure the other guy throws the first punch so I have the excuse to wail on him in self defense. I could easily see that being a situation I'd lose my cool over. Nearly killing a trainer, a superior officer, over a prank caused by a fellow soldier? Yeah, I'd be pissed.

The other two looked suitably impressed but didn't look at me with any fear, which surprised me. Ripley spoke up at that point, I think something in my expression prompted her to relieve me.

"I'd have kicked his ass too. Pranking's one thing, but putting someones life in danger when you know someones natural reaction is to go for their gun? That's stupid." She turned back to Dundee. "What happened to Wolfe?"

"Wolfe was always a prankster, but sometimes he took things too far with those damn pranks. Mathias here got a slap on the wrist for the most part, kitchen duty for beating up Wolfe. But it wasn't his fault for pulling the gun on the TI and we were on a colony, you always keep a gun on hand in case of raider attack, even if you're off duty. Wolfe though, it was the third dangerous prank he'd pulled, last time he lost rank, for this one? Dishonorable Discharge."

The other two nodded slowly and I finished off my food and coffee. Seems like I knew Dundee well enough for him to defend 'my' actions and trusted me to watch his back. That was good. Our trainer and Nihlus entered the room at that point. A glance at my 'tools clock showed me that it was barely seven in the morning, way too early. We started to stand but the trainer waived for us to remain seated.

"All done with your meals?" We nodded as a group. "Good. We're heading out. Grab your weapons and head for the Hanger, you have ten minutes."

With that there was a mad scramble for the armory. I blinked and followed after the others. Instinctually I grabbed a heavy pistol, shotgun and assault rifle. I started for the hangar but forced myself to turn back and grab a belt of grenades as well before running to catch up with the others as they rushed down the hall. We piled into one shuttle with Nihlus while our TI went to another. While we travelled the TI came on the vid-comm to give us the mission parameters.

Shit and double shit. I didn't feel ready for this! Playing video games was one thing but this could kill me! I had to bite the inside of my cheek to control myself and keep from telling them to let me off the shuttle, as it was my left leg was bouncing like crazy.

"Alright men, the mission today is simple. Infiltrate hostile enemy territory. Disable any hostiles encountered. Obtain data from within the building and then make your way back to the LZ. Mathias you're in charge. Do you understand the mission parameters?"

"Yes sir!" I said and gulped, doing my best to hide my nerves from the others and slid on my helmet.

"We're at the LZ," said our pilot over the comm, a pert and cheerful female voice. "good luck!"

The side door of the shuttle opened up and we all piled out and into cover, guns at the ready. The LZ was a nice open clearing in a jungle. Looking around slowly I saw that we had plenty of cover available. My HUD popped up and I saw a mini map, shield bar and ammo bar. Our target was to the north and I saw three red blips in range of our position currently. I wanted badly to give into the instincts that had been placed in me by LK but shoved down the urge. I signaled the others to wait and carefully moved forward under cover toward those red dots. A quick glance out of cover revealed that three security mechs were milling about in a loose patrol pattern. I started to to take aim on the one closest without realizing it and just managed to hold off on pulling the trigger. Cursing softly I forced myself to move back to the others. Once I reached the group I looked to Dundee and then Chief.

"Chief, you got a sniper rifle on you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, can you and Dundee get clear shots from here on the mechs?"

Both moved, popping up with their rifles and then ducking back down. Dundee nodded from his position but Chief had to move to a different tree to find and popped out again rifle raised. Ducking back he nodded that he had line of sight. I nodded in response and started to move back to my scouting position automatically. I again had to force my not to move and pushed my hand against my forehead. I was starting to get a migraine. Shaking my head to try to clear it I looked at Nihlus who had his own sniper rifle out. I grinned as I realized something and hoped that I was right.

"Nihlus?" The turian looked at me with a raised brow ridge. "Your weapon is out. You're a part of our team for this...aren't you?"

"Ah," He said, his amusement easy to read in his flanging voice. "You caught on. Took less time then I expected really."

"Wait? What?" Ripley looked back and forth at us in surprise, even Dundee and Chief were looking at us in surprise.

"Good, find a spot and when I give the signal the three of you take down those mechs at the same time."

They all nodded and I moved back to my scouting spot. Watching the mechs patterns for a few long moments I waited until they were spaced at a nice distance from each other. Again my body acted on its own and gave a fisted signal for them to shoot. All three mechs heads blew up at once. Ripley let out a whoop at the success while I simply frowned under my helmet.

I forced my body to move forward at a slow and careful pace, picking my cover deliberately instead of letting my body rush ahead on it's own. The headache was getting worse by this point and we were barely ten minutes into the mission. I came to a halt when I heard the sound of moving metal and ducked behind the closest tree for cover. I purposefully signaled for the others to hide as well and they each ducked out of sight. Looking around the corner I saw a large cluster of mechs standing around crates and a turret. My hand had already grabbed a grenade before I registered it and was starting to throw the damn thing. The hesitation this time caused my throw to fall short and the grenade landed not ten feet away. Swearing I shouted for the others to fall back and ran.

The blast knocked me off my feet but I was relieved to see my HUD showed my shields still at seventy-six percent. Dundee helped drag me behind cover while Chief and Nihlus covered Ripley as she set up a turret. My head was ringing and before I knew it the mechs were cleared out by the others.

"Mathias, what the hell happened?"

"Hand slipped." I said curtly, forcing myself to my feet and holding my head. Nihlus came over and ran his omni-tool over my form.

"You're showing heightened levels of endorphins and enkephalins to counter pain but I'm finding no injuries beyond bruising."

"Yeah, figured that. Migraine, bad one." I said gritting my teeth and shaking my head again. "Doesn't matter. We've got to move, that blast gave away our position, other hostiles may be advancing on us. Go!"

We all broke off at a run for the building that was in sight, keeping as close to cover as possible. Dundee and Nihlus stayed close to me, ready to offer help if I needed it. We ducked under cover as a large group of mechs trotted off for the site of the explosion and we waited for several long moments.

"Looks like the blast drew their attention, which is good news." He'd raised up and was looking through his scope toward the main doors. "Only two mechs standing guard right now."

"Good, Nihlus help him take them down. Chief, look for a camera and hit it if you find one."

They acknowledge my orders and fired seconds later. Moments later we were clear and able to enter the building. Slowly we checked each room. One room gave me pause and made me hiss in surprise. The others were a little behind me so they hadn't seen it yet.

The room was painted black and inside was a museum display stand. On top of the stand was a single egg shape that was familiar. Behind that was a large, broken head of a statue laying on its side. The head was huge, curved, smooth with a large, flat crest, like a crown. A second little mouth was extending from the primary one. The head of an _Aliens_ queen? There were words carved into the stone and I hesitantly took a step closer to read them.

_Why so serious?_

The fuck? I looked back at the egg and let out a shout, the egg was pulsing and opening up. I backed up and out of the room. Someone grabbed my arm and I spun around pistol raised. It was just Dundee, I quickly raised my gun to point at the ceiling.

"You okay mate?" He asked, looking past me into the room and then looking back at me like nothing was wrong.

I spun back around and saw that the room was empty. A men's bathroom, normal stalls at one wall, urinals at the other and normal white sinks with mirrors over them. _What the fuck?! _I thought to myself. I stepped back into the room and looked around again. The mirror caught my eye. The words, _Why so serious?, _were fading away. I backed out of the room and closed my eyes, leaning my head against the wall, my head pounding. What was going on?

"Mate?"

"I'm good." I said pushing away from the wall. "H-how close are we to the objective?"

"Next room." Ripley said, concern lacing his tone. "Already cleared."

"Doesn't this seem a little...?" Chief started to say and I slapped a hand against his chest plate, not wanting him to jinx us.

"Shut it!" I snapped at him, my temper flaring as I walked past him and into the main room. Going to the console where Nihlus stood waiting I opened my Omni-tool and started to request the transfer of information. The transfer was going well and everyone was watching out for any enemies while I got the data. At the halfway part though all the screens suddenly went blank.

"The hell?" Ripley said, looking away from position at the eastern, what I figured to be eastern, doorway.

The screen popped back up with the 6-bit image of a fat man and a two minute timer that started to count down.

"Ah, ah, ah," said the image. "You didn't say the magic word. Ah, ah, ah. You didn't say the magic word."

Our TI's voice suddenly echoed in our helms.

"ABORT! Get out of there now! This is NOT part of the mission!" His voice dimmed as he yelled at the pilot. "How the hell did our scans miss that bomb until now!? Disable the mechs! Give them a clear exit!"

"MOVE!" I shouted, panic filling me as we raced out of the building and back into the jungle. We barely made it a few yards before the entire place blew sky high. The blast knocked us all down. Groaning we each stood up slowly, my HUD showing my shields at one percent.

"You guys alright?" I called painfully.

"Five-by here sir." Ripley called. "No shields left, that blast took them down."

"Same here sir." Called Dundee.

"Five-by as you say." Said Nihlus, he had a slight limp.

"Chief? You alright?" I called. There was no answer. "Chief!"

"Over here sir!" called Ripley, her voice worried and laced with controlled panic.

We rushed over to her side and came to a halt, a narrow beam had pierced Chief through just under his ribs on the left side. It had gone clean through and seemed to have missed his lungs but I couldn't tell it it had hit his spine or not. Blood was pooling rapidly beneath him. I cursed and opened the comm while Ripley applied medi-gel to try to stem the blood flow.

"We need extraction, _NOW_! Chiefs wounded, it's critical!"

"Copy that." Said our TI. "On the way."

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

Once back at base I stormed to my room, rage suffusing my every pore. I threw my helmet across the room and opened my Omni-tool to type a quick missive to that twisted bitch LK.

_-We need to talk NOW. I don't care how, GET HERE!-_

I'd barely hit the send button when I heard her voice behind me.

"What is the problem?"

I turned to face her ready to lash out and went still. Gone was the gentle mother facade, the friendly helper. The zora/asari woman before me had eyes of cold steel, lips in a firm and unyielding line. I went still as she radiated danger and respect. The was a warrior who didn't take shit and would kick my ass if I wasn't careful. Taking in a slow breath to calm myself I hissed at her.

"What the hell is with this?"

"With what?" She responded coldly.

"ALL of THIS!" I waved my hand around the room. "Half the time I'm fighting my own body! Why in the nine _hells_ did you put this...this _instinct, _this soldiers instinct in me!? Why not put me back further so I can enlist and start from the beginning? I could have gotten killed with that damn grenade!"

"This is the soonest I could place you. You chose the path before you, I merely gave you the tools."

"Tools that I can't fucking _CONTROL!" _I shouted.

"That is not my problem." She said. "You will learn to adapt or you will die."

He words cooled my anger and replaced it with a cold dread.

"This is some kind of _planned_ trial by fire isn't?" I said slowly. "You don't give a damn if I die or not, just if I can _adapt._"

"Very good. You understand." Her voice was condescending.

"And what about 'Raine?!" I hissed taking a step forward.

"She will face her own trial. A trial of the mind and heart. A trail of will."

"And if she fails?" I hissed.

"She will die by her own hand." The Lore Keeper raised a brow. "You did not expect this to be easy, did you?"

"A fucking warning would have been nice!" I waved my hand behind me. "And what the hell was with the training mission!? The _Aliens, _the _Batman _and the _Jurassic Park_ bull shit!?"

"I told you that you are here to stop a rogue dimensional hopper. Do you think he does not have the ability to sense that you are here? That was his way of saying 'hello, let's play'. I've seen it before."

I fumed in silence at her words, my head pounding with the pain and rage and fear that I felt. The fact that she'd said that she had seen this before filled me with cold dread.

"How many others?" I asked finally.

"Others?" She said with a tilt of her head.

"How many others have you called upon to fight this _one_ d-hopper? How many have failed your god damned 'trial'. How many has he killed for _fun _or because he was _bored_?"

"Too many," She said, her voice softening but her face remaining just as cold. "This is the ideal time frame to place you. Too early and they die. You need just enough time to become 'interesting' to him, but not too long to become 'boring'. Too late and they die, killed before they can even become a blip on Shepard's radar, he hates not seeing some effort, hates seeing people just expecting to join up with the team and 'make a difference'. This is one of the reasons I am not allowing you to interfere with the events you know as Mass Effect."

"He kills them before they can intigrate."

"Yes."

"This is all some big fucking chess game. For _both _of you, isn't it?" I said, crossing my arms and daring her to lie.

"I can only do so much young Lucian. The rest is up to you."

She disappeared at that and I growled, frustrated by the lack of answers. Glancing at the time I saw that barely a minute had passed thanks to her little ability. I walked to pick up my helmet from the floor and after starting at it for several long moments I threw it again, hearing it bounce of the wall and not caring where it landed. Someone may well be dying simply because I was _here_. That didn't sit well with me.

"_FUCK YOU!" _I yelled before dropping into my bunk and holding my head in my hands. "Fuck you both. I wont let either of you break me."

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

-Begin secondary audio log-

"Things went rough for you from the start, didn't they?" says the female voice.

"Indeed. Everything is a game, to both of them."

"I can't believe I was so close to losing you."

"What would have been the point? Killing off a 'player' too early would have been boring, she said it herself, too early and it's boring, too soon and it's boring. She needed us to remain interesting long enough that we could become a real threat to the D-hopper." A soft sigh from the male voice. "That was the first time I truly wanted to kill someone you know? Oh I've wished someone would do us a favor and remove themselves from the gene-pool, but actually wish I could kill someone? So much she left out before bringing us here."

"We didn't ask..."

"It didn't matter!" The sound of a glass slamming onto a table. "Both of us found difficulties with the muscle memory she 'gifted' to us. The migraines as I fought to control my own bodies actions could have gotten me killed! What happened to you was no less cruel."

"We lived, we're here."

"For how long?"

-End secondary audio log-

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

Harsh chapter huh? Make you wonder what 'Raine will be facing?

Thanks and pls review! I have cookies!


	7. Chapter 7

yay next chappie!

Thank you again for all the help and support!

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

Chapter 6: Homesick. 'Raine's POV. 2178

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

For a few days Tali and I were given free time to roam around the ship. Kel'el wasn't going to be able to train us as he needed to take care of a few things thanks to Rhys'til's outburst. He'd apologised but Tali and I waved him off and let him know that it was fine. Tali showed me around the ship and even grabbed a few quarian toys for me to fiddle with that helped teach a youngster the dexterity they would need when working on ships. The toy was completely unfamiliar to me and it was fit to function properly in a quarians hands. Thankfully I'd practiced enough as a kid at making the 'live long and prosper' symbol from Star Trek that I could do it with both hands and that allowed me to manipulate the toy. The whole point was to take it apart and put it back together in one of the three shapes it could take; live-ship, fighter and surprisingly, geth.

I asked Tali why she had a toy that would take the shape of a geth when they were supposed to be the quarians greatest enemy and she'd shrugged.

"Just because they are our enemy doesn't mean that they aren't fascinating. They have a hive mind and developed into AI without our interference. We didn't make them to be AI you know. I'd like to find out what caused them to become AI? Was it a glitch in their programming? Was it because of their hive mind? I'm planning on trying to find a intact geth memory core for my pilgrimage. Think of the things we could learn about them if I succeed!"

She'd given me a window of opportunity I just couldn't pass up.

"Not just military information either like base locations or strength of a unit. If you get an intact memory core and they have a hive mind like you say, then you'll have information all the way back to before the War!" I looked at her with a grin and tossed the toy back and forth in my hands. "They can't lie, can't hide things like organics can. Humans have a saying 'history is written by the victors' but in this case, if one single geth knows what happened back then, then all of them will! I could have the answer to my puzzle! I could find out 'why' they just chase you out of your home system and don't try to finish you off!"

"Keelah, you're right." Tali sat back and set down her toy. Her tone was filled with shock and awe as if she'd never thought of the implication. "It would be an unmodified, truly accurate source of history. We lost so much when we left the home world and we can reclaim it in their memory. Because _Geth can't lie._"

She'd set to work on her omni-tool after that, asking me not to bother her as she practiced her hacking skills with renewed vigor. I'd simply let her be and grinned happily, glad I could plant a few seeds toward reconciliation. My grin faded though when I realized that things wouldn't be all that easy. It would be a very hard blow for the quarians when they realized that they had gunned down weaponless protestors, their own people, who felt that the geth were the quarians 'children' and that they had a duty to 'protect' those children.

Shepard's visit into the collective showed several points that made me tear up because the quarians had seemed to split into two factions and harmed their world badly as a result. I wondered if the geth chased the quarians off their home world at the order of one of the 'good' creators because they were screwing up their homes natural enviroment with their fighting? I think Legion said something at some point about the fact that the geth were working on rebuilding and restoring Rannoch. Ah well, those were questions for when I ran into Legion.

After our 'weekend' ended we found ourselves back at what I'd dubbed the 'shooting range' with Kel'el. Rhys'til was absent and all Kel'el would tell us was that there would be a hearing later that day to try to find out where the young mans hatred came from and if his parents bore any fault in encouraging his behaviour. And that we might or might not need to be present for said hearing to make a statement to the Admiralty Board. I was worried that my presence is what caused the blow up and even asked Kel'el if he felt I should simply go home. His response both surprised and relieved me with his sincerity.

"Keelah no!" He placed his hands on my suited shoulders, I'd taken to wearing the suit as it was comfortable and I hoped it would show my willingness to learn and fit in. I wasn't wearing the helmet since Tali assured me that I wouldn't have to. The entire ship was the equivalent to a clean room with constant filters going, even then no one went around outside of their suit or habitat ball so I was no threat to their health.

"Now you listen to me 'Raine _nar Rayya_. The fact that you are here, willing to learn where no one else has even thought to try, where all others see us as the 'beggars of the universe', you have honored us by wanting to learn our ways. Politically speaking the Admiralty jumped on your request to help paint us in a better light, for if you see and show others that we are not thieves, that we are not rodents to be chased away, our people's lives will be the better for it. To make others see us not as wasted space but as potential allies. Most of the races forget that we have the largest potential armada available, even our live-ships can have weapons installed."

He dropped his hands from my shoulders with a pat and I could barely make out his smile through his fogged face mask.

"Personally speaking, I see you as a very brave young lady who will make history for humans and quarians alike. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, youngling."

I wiped at my eyes swiftly trying to stop the tears that were building at his kind words. Tali placed her hand on my shoulder and gave a squeeze, I smiled at her in response. I was starting to see Tali as a little sister, I was older then her at twenty-six, so it was natural I guess. Kel'el clapped his hands together, catching my attention and then he turned back to the table that held weapons.

"Alright then, away from the mushy stuff and on to the fun! I know what weapons you'd like to use, now to find out how proficient you are with the weapons you already know."

Laying on the table were a few basic pistols. Tali moved forward eagerly and I watched as she stripped it down to its basic parts, checked each part and then swiftly placed it all back together. My eyes widened in surprise as the whole process only took her a few minutes. Kel'el clapped his hands, seemingly pleased and indicated for her to take a shot at the dummies.

Tali raised her weapon, holding it firmly but not too tight and took aim. She took in a slow breath, let it out, and pulled the trigger. The dummies head blew to bits.

"Very good Tali'Zorah! Very good!" He waved me forward. "Show me what you can do 'Raine."

I moved forward slowly and picked up one of the pistols. I looked it over, marvelling at the tech and then let out a soft gasp as my hands started moving on their own. Not as fast as Tali, but my hands were taking apart the pistol on their own! The heck!? It took me several long moments and I could feel the beginnings of a headache but I finally got my hands to stop moving, the part I was holding, equivalent to a recoil spring guide (Lucian had taught me a little about his own handgun back home and this part was roughly in the same spot, so I assumed it did the same thing), fell to the floor. Kel'el bent and picked up the part, gently handing it back to me.

"You don't have to be nervous, I'm here to teach you, not judge you. You know what this part is?"

I shook my head slowly, still shaking from the strain of getting control back of my hands. Kel'el's voice was a kindly buzz in my ears ahs he explained each part, I was focused mainly on trying to figure out what the heck just happened. A gentle push against my back toward the table drew me out of my contemplation.

"Try again youngling, take a deep breath, it's alright."

I flushed and looked at the part in my hand, such a tiny thing. I took a slow breath and placed my hands back on the partially disassembled pistol and tried to force my hands to move slowly, I let them move, but I wanted them to move where I could _comprehend_ what they were doing. The headache was getting worse and I could feel my brow twitching from the strain. It took me nearly fifteen minutes but I was able to finish taking it apart and putting it back together at the slower pace and I had a basic idea of where everything went now, which was better then before.

"There we go. Go at your own pace, don't try to rush because you saw someone else do it faster. That's what causes mistakes, like having the weapon jam in a firefight, not fun let me tell you." He sounded like he was speaking from experience. "Now. Go ahead and take your shot."

I flushed a bit in embarrassment that he took the fumble as lack of experience but didn't try to contradict him, I really didn't have any experience, not mentally at least. I raised my arms, again forcing them to move slowly and aimed down the sight of the gun. My legs wanted to move and I allowed them and found that I was more steady on my feet. Grinning I sighted down the barrel and aimed for the head of a dummy and pulled the trigger.

The shot wasn't perfect, only clipping off the top right of the dummies head, but it was still a hit. I grinned in relief and slumped a bit, my thumb automatically hitting the safety as I set the pistol down. I glared at my hand for a moment, it needed to stop doing that!

"Good shot!" Tali said, patting me on the back.

"Indeed, a little off but we can work on that. You'll need to learn precision to be a good sniper."

"Yes sir." I said smiling again.

"Now, each of you grab a pistol and practice shooting for the hour. You're to take the pistol apart and put it back together before each shot fired."

I groaned at that, my head was already pounding!

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

An hour later and the headache I had was so bad that Tali and Kel'el had to help me down to the med-bay. The chief medical officer was out for some reason but the remaining medic had apparently had some experience helping out humans and they even had supplies on hand to help tend any injuries or illnesses I might get. They really did have things planned out for my stay and I found myself very grateful for that. A quick scan showed there was nothing wrong and the medic figured it was a tension headache, combined with the stress of the change to ship life. She gave me a small supply of pain relievers to help and gave me orders to come back if the pain got worse or lingered for longer then a few hours.

I downed the small white pills with some water as soon as I could and Tali helped me back to our room. I collapsed on the bed, and found a good spot to apply pressure to that helped reduce the pain. I passed out shortly after that.

Tali woke me up after what felt like only moments later, shaking my shoulder hard.

"Oi...I'm up...what's wrong?" I asked blinking my eyes open and focusing on her face-mask. I was still a bit groggy from the meds but the pain was gone, thank goodness.

"We're being called into Rhys'til's hearing. They need us to talk about his treatment of you and what kind of action they'll need to take against him for his attitude."

"Seriously?" I said sitting up quickly, almost bashing my head against her face-mask. She jerked back in time and shoved my hairbrush into my hand.

"Yes, 'seriously'. We need to hurry, I've spent almost five minutes trying to wake you!"

"Ack! Sorry!" I brushed my hair quickly, tearing through my tangles and tossing the brush on the bed. I started out of the room, turning to the right only for my wrist to be grabbed Tali as she headed left.

"Gah!" I yelped as I stumbled due to the sudden change of direction.

"This way!"

She led the way to an elevator and hit one of the buttons. I couldn't recognise which number it was, hadn't started learning their alphabet yet. Several minutes later we were still moving.

"Seriously? The elevators are this slow?" I asked in surprise.

"Yes, now you see why I wanted you to hurry." Tali's voice was worried and she kept checking her Omni-tool. "I think we'll just barely make it."

"Hasn't anyone tried to find faster tech, like a booster or something?"

"Hmm?" Tali looked up. "Oh, you mean the elevator. We have a few out on pilgrimage hoping to find just that."

"Ah."

We fell silent after that. Ten minutes later the elevator dinged and Tali again grabbed my wrist and dragged me at a run down the halls. Several adults shouted after us, either yelling to watch where we were going, shouting for us to hurry, or laughing at the sight of me being pulled along by the smaller girl. I blushed at the teasing that followed us and tried to keep pace with Tali. Finally she stopped in front of a door, checked her 'tool and then took a moment to slow her breathing. I braced my hands against my knees and forced myself to breath slowly, trying to calm my heart rate.

"We...good on time?" I said standing straight.

"Yep. Try to answer their questions and don't interrupt ok?"

I nodded and we made our way into the room. There had been a dull chatter at first but when people realised I was in the room it went dead quiet. I blushed and followed Tali as she moved to stand at one of the podiums where Kel'el was waiting. The room was a bit larger then the one Shepard had been in during Tali's trial and housed a hell of a lot more people. Rhys'til and his parents stood at the other podium. Rhys'til was slumped dejectedly while his parents stood straight and kept at least a foot distance from him. They were obviously displeased with his actions.

Like the other ship, there was a place for the Admirals to stand, of which all were present. Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay of the patrol fleet, Admiral Zaal'Koris vas Qwib Qwib of the civilian fleet, Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema of the Heavy fleet, Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh of special projects and Admiral Rael'Zorah vas Alarei. I couldn't recall what Tali's father was supposed to be in charge of in regards to the Fleet.

I stood by Tali remaining quiet but fidgeting nervously at all the attention. Admiral Han'Gerrel spoke up at that point and called attention to the room.

"Thank you all for being here. Today we are to discuss a serious accusation brought to our attention by Kel'el vas Qwib Qwib in regards to one of our young, Rhys'til nar Rayya."

The crowd started muttering again softly for a few moments and Rhys'til seemed to hunker down further, trying to hide. I felt a pang of pity for him. It was never fun getting in trouble with your parents, getting in trouble with the _leaders_ of your people? Had to be absolute hell for him. I was actually surprised that they had called this hearing so quickly. Best to nip dissent in the bud fast I guess.

"Kel'el, please tell us what occurred?" said Admiral Shala'Raan in her gentle voice.

Kel'el recounted what had occurred during training the day before. Several of those behind us raised their voices in shock and outrage when he clarified which taboo word was used, being careful to use the translation and not the actual word.

"Forgive me, all of those here," Admiral Han'Gerrel said, god's but did I love his voice, "but we must confirm that the word he specifically used was 'Ish'ti'?"

Everyone let out soft gasps and angry muttering when Admiral Han finished speaking. I was surprised that the Admiral dared to use their taboo word but figured that during an inquiry of such nature that they had some leeway. I recalled the story Kel'el told me and realized that the people who used that kind of word were probably the worst sort of bigots and racists, well in this case speciests, the kind of people that resorted to murder to get their way. _Well, that's a cheery thought, this might not end well, _I thought to myself.

"Sir, yes sir." Kel'el responded, his voice grim.

"And the word is _accurate_! We don't need _that filth_ on our ship! On _any_ of our ships!" A older female voice called out from the crowd.

And the shit hits the fan. The room erupted into vicious noise, shouts of anger at the words of the quarian who stepped forward. She was hunched forward slightly, no cane, probably too stubborn, but it definitely looked like she was an elder by the way she moved. Rhys'tils mother let out a pained cry.

"Auntie Metin'! This was _your_ doing?!" her voice was filled with anguish and shame.

"Yes! And I would do it again!" She was now in the center of the room and turned to face the crowd, arms raised.

"The other species of this universe look down upon us! They torment, beat and arrest us with no reason but that we are _Quarian_!"

Everyone had gone quiet, many had their arms crossed, including the Admiralty Board, and several were standing in either aggressive or worried stances.

"We are not beasts! _They_ are! Their viciousness against our young out on pilgrimage! Their blatant price gouging when we need supplies! We rely on _Ourselves_ for a reason! Because _No One_ else can be trusted!"

People were shifting nervously where they stood. I flinched, she had a painful point about their treatment by the other species. I felt a hand grab mine and I jumped, looking down I saw Tali's hand gripping mine and I trying to give her a brave smile before looking back to the scene developing in front of us.

"If they will not welcome us on their ships, we should not welcome them upon ours!" She spun around and pointed a finger at me causing me to wince.

Terror filled me. I had faced people who were upset with me before, but _This_ was not an anger directed at me, a single person. This was a rage, a loathing, that was directed not just at humans but at asari, salarian, turian and more. This was a loathing of all outside species and I was facing the brunt of it.

I felt Kel'el's hand settle on my shoulder. I looked to my teacher, and then to my new friend Tali. I'd only been here for a week, and this was the result? This hatred? Where was she for Shepard's visit? Dead? Was that why there was not even a hint of this level of animosity during ME2? She turned to the Admiralty Board.

"And yet our great leaders allow a _beast _upon our ship and think to teach It _our_ ways, _our_ history and _our_ morals? I say _No_! If the species of the other worlds would treat us as dirt under their precious mag-boots then we should treat them_ no less different_! If _It_ must be here then it is not as our _equal_ but as our _lesser_! Teach _It_ the same pain we have had to endure!"

There was muttering from around the room, quiet but cruel. Obviously many were not happy with my presence on their ship or felt that it was a waste of time. The Admiralty Board was speaking softly as well, 'Raan was gesturing angrily at Han while 'Xen was simply shrugging. The other Admirals stood still and silent as if waiting. I didn't want to cause any further upset, I really didn't, but I had to stand up for myself somehow. I let go of Tali's hand and stepped forward, rubbing my hands nervously.

"I...I'll..." I took a deep breath and tried again. "I'll be the first to admit, that the treatment of the Quarian people by the other species hasn't been...the best."

The room had fallen quiet again as everyone turned to look at me. I gulped and tried to stand straighter under the weight of their combined gaze.

"I'm just...someone who wants to learn. Your people, your ways, your culture." I raised my hands and then let them fall to my sides. "You are amazing. Such diversity, such hardships and still you persevere. You have one of the harshest ways of life, you have to be so very careful..."

"Exactly! Careful!" Metin lunged forward finger pointing at my face and I raised my hands in an 'I'm not armed' gesture. "Your mere presence here could kill us! Kill our young! You are a danger to our people the longer you are here!"

My eyes narrowed and I slowly crossed my arms, forcing myself not to back up, not to flee though I desperately wanted to leave and not look back. Then I hit on an idea.

"And what about the danger I'm in?"

"Pah! As if you are in danger!"

"I am. Every day I stay on this ship I increase the danger to myself, _every single second_."

Everyone fell silent again, this time in confusion. Taking a page from Metin's book I raised my arms out and turned to the crowd.

"Look at me! I am here, in a sterile environ. My species, humans, have a genetic benefit, yes and that benefit is a highly adaptive immune system, but that benefit is _dependant_ on being _exposed_ to a _natural_ _environ_. On _constantly_ fighting off bacteria or weak viruses. Our bodies are always at war and the longer I stay aboard your ship the _weaker_ my immune system will become because it has _nothing to fight_! If a bodies immune system has nothing to battle then like any muscle it will atrophy and become _useless_!" I brought my hand down in a slicing gesture. "If I stay aboard this ship as I plan to, for years, then the moment I step on board another starship, the moment I step onto the citadel, I risk falling sick to an illness that any other human's immune system would be able to fight and I might very well die due to a _common cold_!"

I started pacing in the circle back and forth in front of the crowd. I was using logic that they knew very well, with their weakened immune systems. Even Metin looked a bit surprised at my words and wasn't trying to verbally brow beat me into submission, yet. People were starting to calm down to my relief. I was trembling inside, my nerves were shot. I took another steadying breath and pushed through the fear.

"I don't hate quarians, I don't fear quarians, I don't look down at quarians. I respect you! Of all the species I find only your own and _one_ other to be the most resilient, the most tenacious, the most stubborn and amazing and beautiful of all those in this universe, and no I _do not_ see humans as the other species." I looked to Metin and shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't know and may never know why you hate the other species so deeply. In a way as well, I'm not sure I want to know what you went through, but I am not 'everyone else'. I am _not_ a 'beast' or a 'monster' or a 'villain'. I'm just _one_ young woman who wants to learn from a species who has so _very_ much to teach me." I looked up at the Admiralty Board. "_If_ you're still willing to have me here that is."

Silence filled the room before Raan stepped forward.

"Of course we will have you, child." She turned to Metin and her voice grew firm. "We will have to talk to you further Chief Medical Officer Metin're vas Rayya" Oh shit she was the head of this ships medics?! I was really glad she was out earlier when Tali and Kel'el took me to the med bay! She might have tried to kill me by giving me the wrong medication!

"Your actions and words this day will only breed malcontent. That ends _now_." She looked to Rhys'til and her voice softened yet remained firm. "Rhys'til nar Rayya, in light of your aunt's obvious anger and her passing that anger on to you, which is an anger that time and again has proven to be detrimental to the safety and well being of the Fleet, we will forego greater punishment at this time."

Rhys'til relaxed and if it wasn't for his mother he would have fallen to the floor in relief.

"You are, however, placed on probation. You will be staying with your parents until further notice, though you will still receive your needed training. You are not to be seen on decks sixty through seventy unless escorted. Any deviation from these instructions _will_ result in disciplinary action being taken against you. You are dismissed."

The small family left the hall, others parting for them to leave. Raan turned back to Tali, Kel'el and I.

"Kel'el, please lead the younglings back to their room. They do not need to be here for the remainder of this hearing."

"Yes ma'am."

Kel'el led us back out of the room and back to the elevator. I managed to keep standing until we reached the elevator and then my legs gave out, Tali let out a yelp and managed to catch me before my knees crashed into the unyielding metal under our feet. My sight blurred and I let out a strangled sound. Kel knelt beside me and placed his hand on my shoulder.

"Easy now 'Raine, you're alright. You were amazing. Breathe now."

"I'd ask how anyone could be filled with such hate," I said with a pained gasping laugh, "but I know, in a way, I know."

They helped me to stand, not asking what I meant by my comment and I kept my gaze on the floor, tears falling freely. Before I realized it we were back at our room. I blinked away a few tears and then turned to Tali with a watery smile.

"I don't...want to be rude, but could I have the room to myself for a while? I want...to be alone for a bit...okay?"

"Yeah, you do what you need to, Kel'el and I will go...shoot things, right Kel?"

"As you order 'Admiral'" Kel'el said, trying to lighten the mood. He had to dodge an elbow to his gut as they walked down the hall toward the shooting range.

I moved into the room and collapsed onto my bunk, crying into my pillow. I'd managed to keep control long enough for that stupid little speech I gave, but the fear and pain no longer needed to be held back. I sniffled. I wanted to see my mother, I wanted to go home. The awe had worn off and the reality had set in. There were people out there who hated me just on the fact that I wasn't the same species as them. How screwed up was that? I wanted...

I sat up slowly and looked at my omni-tool. I didn't know if he was on a mission or was sleeping and at that time I didn't care. I desperately needed to hear Lucian's voice. I looked over the tutorial and then opened the comm and initiated the call to his own 'tool. I leaned my head against the metal wall and listened to the ringing.

One...

Two...

Three...

Four...

After about a total of ten rings my shoulders slumped and I moved to end the call. Lucian's voice filled the room just before I pressed the button and I jerked up with a soft cry.

'Hey! Sorry about that, haven't used this things calling feature yet... Hello?'

"Lucian..." I said with a sniffle, smiling at the sound of his voice.

''Raine? What's wrong?'

"I'm just. Things just got...kinda bad."

'How? Are you alright?!'

"Yeah, fine. Not hurt...physically, it's just..." I hiccupped.

'Take a deep breath little light, then tell me what happened.'

I took a slow breath and then let it out. Slowly I went over the events of the day. My body suddenly knowing how to disassemble and reassemble a pistol. The migraine that developed while I fought to slow my movements. The hearing...

"It was...bad Lucian. That kind of rage, loathing...I've felt it, controlled it, but never been the object of it, you know? It kind of made things all come into focus. There are people who will want us dead just for being human. We can't go home...we really are stuck here with people who want us dead."

'Yeah, we are. And I do know what you mean concerning the lack of control. Try having the muscle memory of one who has gone through all the training to reach N6 and then be nominated for N7 training.'

I winced at the thought. "Are you getting the headaches too?"

'Yeah, I think it's because of the strain of having to stop your body from acting the way it wants to. She did this on purpose too.'

"LK?"

"Yep, we aren't the first people she's called on apparently. All the others were killed by the D-hopper either because they became 'boring' or because they didn't 'put in enough effort'. We've been forced into what she calls an 'ideal time' and we'll have to learn about the 'gifts' she's bestowed us with, without help. Sink or swim. I have to learn in the middle of the battlefield and you...she said it's going to be a trail of will and the mind, so, probably withstanding the hatred you just faced, there are probably others that feel the same as this Metin're so be careful and don't let them beat you down. Not actually surprised that they have people hidden amongst them like that with the way they are treated, combined with their isolationist tendencies, so watch your back. By the way, the bastard paid me a visit, so you need to be even more careful.'

"Bastard? Who, the D-hopper?"

'Yup.'

"When?!"

Lucian then explained to me what had happened during their first N7 training mission. The movie references and then the bomb itself. I felt sick to my stomach as I fell against the wall behind me.

"I...shit...you're ok though right?"

'Yeah. Took out my shields completely, but no damage to me. The only casualty was Chief. Thin pipe right through him under the ribs. We still don't know anything other then that he's in critical condition.'

"I hope he makes it."

'Surprisingly, I do too. Hardly know the guy, but he seems okay. Ah, a sec love?'

"Sure."

There was a muffled shouting and I grinned as I heard Lucian's response over the comm.

'Be right there! 'Raine? Looks like we finally have some word on Chief. We're having a debrief now. I'll call when I can alright? And watch out, D-hopper might try to 'say hello'. You be safe.'

"I'll do my best. I love you."

'Love you too, Little Light.'

The omni-tool faded out and I curled up on the bed and sighed. At least he was okay. I still wished he was here to hold me but I would have to make do with his voice. As I fell asleep I worried, though. Who would be put into danger if the D-hopper decided to visit me?

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

-Begin secondary audio log-

"The struggle to control our bodies lasted for a long time." says the female voice softly. "The quarian medics had to send off for pain medicine more often then they would have liked. And they could never find anything that would point to a cause for the headaches."

"What was worse was the 'hesitation' caused by the struggle to maintain control. In the middle of battle it was one of the worst things that could happen." The male voice sounds highly annoyed.

"At least we were able to get control of the 'gifts' after time."

"Five years is not enough time to learn to completely control the instinct of a career soldier, but it would be enough for me to survive."

"Just barely..."

-End secondary audio log-

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W00T!

Review!

Happy Fourth!


	8. Chapter 8

yay next chappie!  
TI= Training Instructor. Also known Military Training Instructor (MTI), normally just shortened to TI.

Temporary Duty Yonder (TDY)  
A temporary duty yonder assignment, or TDY, refers to a U.S. government travel assignment at a location other than the employee's permanent duty station. They are usually of relatively short duration, typically from two days to two months in length. A TDY can be to any location, be it 50 or 5,000 miles away, but they are all less than 1 year in duration.

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Chapter 7: Getting to know you. Lucian POV

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I closed up my Omni-tool after making sure the call was ended and hightailed it down to the mess hall. I slowed down a few paces from the hall and entered the room at a sedate pace. Dundee and Ripley were sitting at one of the tables while our TI and Nihlus both stood grim faced at one of the table ends. I moved over and took a seat, refraining from asking any questions.

"Now that we're all present we can begin." Our TI (...what was his name again? Oh right, Commander Rodgers! I'd only heard his name once at that point and it was a rather forgettable name.) rolled his shoulders slightly and we all stiffened, ready for the worst news. "Lt Cmdr. Chief will be able to make fully recovery but at this time is paralyzed from the waist down. The pipe damaged his spine and we will need to take him to Huerta Memorial at the Citadel for him to receive top of the line treatment which should get him back on his feet and ready for duty."

We all let out a sigh of relief at the news. Ripley piped up suddenly.

"How long until he's back on his feet sir?"

"The doctors at Huerta are optimistic from his files that he will be back on his feet within the month. This is ideal for the brass as they are investigating the incident that caused his injury. While the investigation is going on you will be TDY until we are able to confirm the status of each training base. Treat it as a small vacation as you will not be undergoing any exercises or going on any missions. However each of you must have one guard with you at all times, they will be in civvies so don't worry about looking out of place."

"But sir! We're still able to train!" Dundee was the one who pipped up then.

"I understand but if the attackers were able to locate one of our undisclosed locations for N7 training they may very well be able to locate another. We need time to check _all _N training facilities, not just the N7's." He popped up his own Omni-tool and checked the screen before looking up at us. "Now, the choice is to return to Earth for the time being or you can join your fellow N7 trainee at the Citadel while he recovers."

"Bloody hell, TDY on the Citadel?" Dundee looked like a kid who'd been told he would have full access to the candy store. "I've been wanting to visit the Silversun strip, top of the line games, food and more!"

"Bah, it's just a normal tourist trap. Why waste your money?" Ripley was looking at Dundee scornfully. "Let's go back to Earth, get some time on the beach."

The two glared at each other for several long moments before turning and looking hopefully at me. I realized that they were waiting for my opinion and were probably going to be fine with a majority vote. That and I was still the defacto leader of our group until told otherwise. I thought about it for a few and realized that while I did want to see the differences between 'my' Earth and this Earth, I wanted to check out the Citadel a bit more. You only got to see the parts the developers needed you to see for the purposes of the Mass Effect plot line or for side quests. It would be nice to check out the rest of the place, that and the Silversun Strip looked pretty nifty from what I had seen while playing ME3. That and I might have a bit better luck trying to find someone to buy those 'old' twenties that I had. I smiled at them and then nodded at Dundee.

"Those games looked pretty damn sweet. Plus I'd like to be nearby if there are any complications with Chief."

"Alright!" Dundee pumped his fist into the air causing Nihlus, our TI and myself to laugh at his enthusiasm.

"Yeah, fine." Ripley sighed and grumbled under her breath. "Geeks."

I looked back over to our TI and indicated Nihlus.

"What's our resident Spectre going to do? There are no missions for him to judge at this point."

"I'll be going on a few missions of my own most likely. I need to report back to the Council and let them know what happened. Once I get the all clear I'll be back to help with your training." He shrugged slightly. "Who knows? Maybe I'll be lucky enough that the Council wont have need of me for a few days and I'll be able to get some R&R of my own."

I laughed at that. "Well if your higher ups do give you a few days find us at the Strip."

"I'll do that."

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They had us packed up and on a ship to the Citadel within the day. We would have left a bit sooner but both Nihlus and our TI were paranoid enough to check and quadruple check the ship we would be on to make sure there were no 'surprises'. Finally they were both satisfied and we were allowed to board with our 'guards' (they took their own seats and started talking to each other) and take off. The trip itself was going to take at least an hour so we settled down to nap or read or play games on our 'tools.

I opened up my 'tool and sent a quick message to 'Raine to let her know where I was going to be and about Chief's expected recovery. Then I searched the extranet a bit further on the twenties I had stored in my inner jacket pocket. I'd only done a quick search which showed me the average rate that collectors would pay, around sixteen thousand credits for each twenty dollar bill, what I was interest in now was the maximum a collector had paid for the 'old' money which would help in my haggling once I found an appropriate shop. A quick search on the extranet surprised me actually. At one of the more lavish auctions a single twenty dollar bill had gone for almost thirty thousand credits. That was almost double the average rate. I chuckled softly to myself which caught Dundee's attention.

"What's so funny mate?"

"Nothing much, I just have some old heirlooms I've been thinking of selling." I shrugged. "Looks like their going rate at an auction is pretty nice, higher then the standard rate. That knowledge will help me with bargaining as I'm planning on selling a few of them while we're on the Citadel and keep the rest for a rainy day."

"Good idea, mate. We get good medical, dental and the whole nine, but for regular living we don't get all that much."

"Pah, that's because you waste what money you have on games. You should learn to save your money or at least spend it on the important things like weapons, med-gel and armor upgrades." Ripley pipped up from where she was reclining. Her eyes had been closed and I'd honestly thought she was asleep.

"She has a point, saving up is always a good idea, good quality armor and guns is an even better idea." I said looking back at my 'tool.

"Can it! You're a gamer too! Don't defend that Bludger." He was conveniently ignoring the comment on battle supplies.

"'Bludger'? That's rich. You're the lazy ass of the team. You're either sleeping or gaming every chance you get."

"Exactly! It's called 'Down Time' for a reason ya knocker."

While the two argued I rolled my eyes and focused back on my Omni-tool. Looking through it I managed to find what amounted to my 'bank account application' and saw that I had a healthy sum that was 'saved up over the years'. Logically speaking I was a gamer and it seemed to reflect, but I also tried to save up money when ever I could. On a bartenders pay, that wasn't much honestly, only had a thousand saved last I checked. On a soldiers pay of 'my' rank now that I was in the Mass Effect universe? My bank account didn't exactly look right to me so I did some pay grade checks. And that ended up being a little harder to break down. I'd been in service since I was 'eighteen', and been a Lt Cmdr less then a year. My current pay grade when I looked it up was four-thousand two-hundred and twenty credits per month. I had to do a double take at the amount but as far as the pay chart was showing it looked correct. A recruit started off at fifteen hundred a month and that amount went up with rank and years of service. All of that helped me make a little more sense of my credit total which was around two-hundred thousand five hundred, give or take a few credits here and there.

"How much do you have saved up Dundee?" I asked curiously.

"Me? Around fifty thousand credits, enough to get a sweet apartment for a few years."

"That's it?" Ripley sat up and stared at Dundee before shaking her head and laying back down. "You really do waste too much on games."

"It ain't that bad!" Dundee's voice was defensive at first and then turned sly. "How much do you have then Ripley? Since you're such a big penny-pincher."

"Not that it's any of your business but...four-hundred thousand."

I looked up from my 'tool at that, my brow raised. Dundee's jaw dropped.

"You really are a tight-ass! Mathias! What about you mate? You're nothing like this sheila are you?" The hopeful tone in his voice was amusing.

"Two hundred thousand, give or take." I answered with a shrug.

"Crikey! I know you're as big of a gamer as I am. How did you manage that?!"

I gave some thought about what I had learned of Dundee so far from the verbal cues both had been kind enough to provide and then grinned at him evilly. "Maybe I'm not foolish enough to actually pay for level ups or quick mission completions or pay for extra items that I can gain through a little something called 'effort'. I buy the main game and any DLC and I put in my own time for level ups and item scrounging."

Dundee fell into a sputtering fit that had me and Ripley laughing, even our protection detail overheard the conversation and got a good laugh out of Dundee's reaction. I'd apparently hit the nail on the head.

"I don't think I'm going to talk to either of you for a while!" He fell into what was obviously a playful sulk and crossed his arms turning to look away from us both.

"Good! That means I can actually catch some shut-eye!" Ripley said with a caustic tone.

"Alright children," I said rolling my eyes and cutting off Dundee before he could finish opening his mouth. "quit it or you get a time out."

"Yes, daddy." They replied in unison. I reached over and smacked them both upside the head and we all dissolved into laughter.

It was a strained laughter I realized. We were all relieved that Chief was going to live, but still worried about the operation he was going to get in Huerta. While Commander Rodgers said the doctors were hopeful he'd be up and walking within the month, there was always, always the chance of something going wrong in an operation, I don't care how advanced a species gets. Not only that but the others were affected by the 'unknown' attackers who'd managed to locate and plant a bomb on a secret military training base and then keep said bomb hidden until the last minute. I knew what had happened of course but who would believe me?

I shook my head and looked back to my 'tool looking for something to distract me for the rest of the ride. Hmm, Galaxy of Fantasy was just starting out and definitely looked interesting if the demo was anything to go by. Similar to World of Warcraft but just different enough that it could be a unique experience. A purchase and install later and I was immersed in the game.

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

It took Ripley a few moments to catch my attention when the ship arrived. Finding a safe place to save I closed out the game, grabbed my bags and followed the others. We wandered up to the ship cockpit and crowded together to watch the approach.

To say that I was amazed at the sight of the Citadel would have been an understatement. With all the advancements in gaming, pixels were only able to capture a portion of the majesty the Citadel offered. The pale 'cloud' surrounding the Citadel had a violet hue to it and the arms of the Citadel glowed with the life of those who lived there.

Ripley was eagerly pointing out the different ships that were docking, docked, or leaving the Citadel. I wasn't paying much attention to her or Dundee as I was focused on the 'arms' of the station. Each one was supposed to be a type of contained city and even from a distance you could see the lights of the cabs zipping back and forth to their destinations. It was fascinating to watch. We docked smoothly and Commander Rodgers led us out into the docking bay and toward one of the cab terminals. I had to stop abruptly as a Keeper walked in front of me and I wrinkled my nose.

Again, pixels just didn't do any justice. A keeper has eight limbs total which always reminded me of spiders and the bulbous eyes were huge and glistening and gave the sense that they were always watching you. The chittering noise they made on occasion made me twitch. It didn't help that I knew exactly what they'd originally been programmed to do. That and I had a healthy sense of paranoia to begin with.

Ripley and I boarded one car with two of our guards while Dundee and Commander Rodgers boarded another with the other two and the Commander set our destination for the Zakera Ward. We were going to a small but classy hotel in the ward. We arrived about twenty minutes later and piled out of the car and followed him toward our temporary residence. He advised us that it was a modest three bed, two bath hotel room all paid for courtesy of the Alliance. While I tried to keep my gaze to the front for the most part and not look like a bumbling tourist while we walked, Dundee was playing that part well enough as it was, I still glanced around at the different shops and people milling about.

Suddenly, not too far from the cab terminal we had just left, the sound of a child crying caught my attention and I glanced around. It wasn't the annoying 'I'm not getting my way' kind of cry but the soft, barely heard sobbing of a child lost. I stopped and trying to look around for the source of the noise but didn't see anything. Closing my eyes I tried to turn in the direction fo the sobbing and then opened my eyes. I was looking at...the wall?

I heard Dundee call for me and waived a hand at him and the others distractedly. I walked over to the wall and frowned. There was a simple bench and a plant set up for people who wanted to rest. Ah, there! Behind the bench, barely noticable, was a ventilation shaft. There was no grate. Tilting my head I grabbed the bench and gave a small tug. It wasn't bolted down so I was able to shift it out of the way and glanced down into the small shaft, something that only a child could fit into.

The shaft went downward about six or so feet before going back. Huddled at the bottom was a small Asari girl who looked to be around seven or so. Her skin was teal in coloration and she had a cute smattering of white freckles on her nose. Her clothes, while dirty, looked high quality which meant she most likely wasn't a duct rat. I gave her a gentle smile as she looked up at me wide eyed.

"Hey hun, how'd you get down there?" I asked in a gentle voice.

"'enry grabbed me." She said with a sniffle.

By that time the others had caught up to me and Dundee kicked his foot lightly against my leg causing me to look at him.

"What are you doin' mate?"

"Little girls stuck down there." I indicated the shaft. "Going to try to help her up. Flag C-sec will you? She doesn't look like a duct rat, good clothes."

Dundee nodded and started looking around for a officer while Ripley muttered something about 'picking up strays', the others stayed silent but remained watchful for any threat. I ignored her and looked back down at the little girl who was standing now and looking up at me hopefully.

"Alright sweetie, I'm going to reach down. You need to grab my hand and arm real tight and I'll pull you up okay?"

She nodded and I reached down as far as I could. She gave a hop and wrapped her arms around mine and gripped the sleeve of my jacket tight as she could. I smiled at her and nodded my head.

"Very good sweetie. Count of three and I'll lift. Ready?" She nodded. "One...two...three!"

I raised my arm up slowly so she would have a chance to keep a firm grip. The moment her feet no longer touched the ground her grip tightened and she squeaked burying her face against my arm. It was adorably funny. I had to shift awkwardly in order to get her out of the shaft but was able to pull her out without banging her head against the edge of the shafts opening. I stood up and then I tried to set her down but she still had a tight grip on my hand and arm and was curled up as much as she could so even with my arm against my side she wasn't touching the ground at all. I gave her shoulder a small shake.

"Hey. You're out." I said softly.

She opened her eyes and relaxed her hold a bit, settling her feet firmly on the floor. She looked up at me and smiled, her eyes going black. I flinched as I felt a mind push against my own, images of myself, 'Raine and more flashing in front of me. I pulled my arm free of the girl as quickly and gently as I could and her eyes changed back to a soft blue color. Her teal skin flushed to a dark purple at her cheeks and she looked at the ground with tears in her eyes. I tilted her chin up and made her look at me.

"You didn't mean to right?" She nodded. "Then don't worry, just, don't talk about anything you saw alright? A persons' mind is a private thing."

She nodded again and then held out her arms to me. I blinked a bit in surprise and carefully picked her up and stood up. She nuzzled her face against my neck and seemed to relax at the realization that I wasn't mad at her for the unintentional meld. I wasn't going to blame the child for something she didn't know how to control just yet and was glad that in the flashes I saw that none of them included the Lore Keeper or my Plans.

Dundee came back at a run with a C-sec officer at his side. I blinked at the sight of the Turian following him and had to fight to keep all signs of recognition off my face as I realized who he had grabbed. I set the young asari back down so she was standing on her own

"This is Officer Vakarian." Dundee said, introducing us to Garrus.

"Hello. I see you've found a young asari. We actually had a report of a missing asari kid in the area." Garrus looked at the young girl in my arms and lowered his voice. "Hey sweetie, are you Alani?"

She nodded her head and shuffled a bit so she was partly hidden behind me.

"Your mother is very worried, give me a moment to let her know we've found you okay?" Another nod and he tapped his omni-tool. "This is officer Vakarian. We've located the missing child Alani, we're down near the cab terminal in Zakera Ward." There was an acknowledgement and he closed his 'tool and looked back to the girl.

"Your mom's on her way right now." Garrus looked up to me and my team. "Thanks for finding her, where was she?"

"In the shaft." I indicated the open duct shaft behind the moved bench. "She said Henry pulled her down." Alani suddenly started shaking her head and held up her arms again. I gave a small sigh and picked her up and she then tugged lightly on my hair, not enough to hurt but enough to get my attention.

"Not Henry, 'Enry!" She said in a bossy tone (bossy in a cute way).

I raised a brow at her. She could say 'Henry' just fine without cutting anything off so I had to be hearing the name wrong. I shifted her a bit in my arms.

"Spell his name?" I asked.

"I...N...R...I. Inri!" She said in the same tone.

I would have said something further but a womans voice shouted in relief and Alani forced herself out of my arms and into the arms of a rather relieved asari. Her skin was a dark indigo and she had a simple white double strip design on her cheeks and also had a shopping bag hanging from one arm. They held each other for a long moment. Garrus interrupted with a soft cough.

"Ma'am if possible we'd like to get a statement from your daughter? She's already mentioned an Inri."

"Of course. I..." Alani tugged on her mothers arm to interrupt her and pointed at me whispering rapidly in her mothers ear for several moments before looking down at the ground. "...ah?" She looked up at me and then held out her hand. I shook it and raised a brow.

"Something wrong?"

"Alani said that you're the one who rescued her. Thank you for that." I nodded and shrugged, she continued before I could say anything though. "She also says she inadvertently melded with you as well as this Inri, who'd apparently grabbed her out of jealousy to give her a scare, she'd picked up why he was upset with her during the small meld. I do apologize, she's just starting to learn control."

"It's understandable," I waved off the concern, "she _is_ a child and sometimes children can't control things. I don't think she saw anything too bad. How old is she?"

"She's twelve now and will have learned full control by fifteen."

"Really? She only looks around seven." I asked in surprise.

"Asari age slower then most species, she wont appear to be an adult to others until she's around twenty-five and wont be able to perform anything but a informational or emotional meld until she's around forty, the equivalent to human puberty." Her mother shrugged.

Alani shook her head at that and grinned up at us, she then reached for the bag her mother was carrying and gave it a small tug. Her mother raised a 'brow' and lowered the bag so Alani could reach in and pull out a...stuffed krogan plushie?

"Seriously? Who's brave enough or dumb enough to make a krogan_ plushie_?" I asked in surprise and I heard the others echo me, even the Commander.

"Ah, it's custom made." She pointed to several features, a less prominent hump, less noticable head plate and the like. "This is a plushie of her, well, other mother I suppose you would say."

"'Other mother?'" Dundee echoed.

"I see, your mate is a female krogan...how does that work though I thought all fertile females staye...oh." I stopped myself and rubbed my forehead suddenly realizing what I was saying. "I'm sorry, she isn't fertile is she?"

"No, and you have no reason to be sorry." A sad smile came to the asari's lips as Alani grabbed hold of the plushie and moved back toward the shaft. I kept an eye on her, wondering what she was doing. "She wasn't fertile, you're right. The only way an unfertile female krogan can have kids is with an asari, and that's only if they retain the will to live."

"The genophage always rubbed me the wrong way when I heard about it the first time." I shook my head. Alani was now calling out at the shaft and I frowned and moved back over to her. The others followed.

"Inri? Inri! I have a gift! Inri?" Her voice was plaintive.

Garrus leaned over and spoke softly to us. "Inri is a turian name. Ma'am, have you been to the Citadel before? Does she have any turian friends?"

Alani's mother responded equally soft. "No, it's our first visit to the Citadel since she was born. We're going to be taking a shuttle to Tunchunka to visit Kalra's grave tomorrow."

"I'm sorry for your loss." I said feelingly, I couldn't imagine loosing 'Raine.

There was a sudden scrambling noise from the shaft that interrupted the conversation and we all turned to watch as two little clawed hands grabbed the edge. That shocked the hell out of me considering how deep the shaft actually was. Turians were damn good jumpers it seemed. A small head poked up, light blue eyes framed in a small turian face and a small still developing fringe that looked somehow cute rather then dangerous. Upon seeing us the young turian was about to drop back down but Alani held out the stuffed krogan to him. His mandibles clicked together making a nervous noise and Alani smiled at him reassuringly.

"For you Inri! Want you to have it. You need mommy more."

For a moment it looked like Inri was going to try to swipe a claw at Alani, anger and jealousy flickered in his eyes, but it faded after a moment with the realization that someone really _was_ just trying to give him a gift and didn't mean anything cruel by it, he must have seen something in the unintentional meld that overoad his normal response and let him trust Alani's intentions. His clawed hand reached out slowly and grabbed the krogan doll by one of its arms. Alani let it go as he tugged it back to his side, still managing to hold onto the shaft with one clawed hand. Garrus started to approach and I placed up an arm to stop him, whispering softly.

"Think C-sec, a duct rat sees you approaching and he'll bolt, I'm surprised he hasn't already with all of us here."

Garrus nodded and stepped back. Alari suddenly looked up at her mother with wide eyes. Cue the begging I thought with an eyeroll, used to the look from my own siblings when they were younger.

"Mommy? Can we take Inri with us? He can be my brother!" Alani's voice was soft and begging.

Alani's mother looked over the small turian before moving over to the vent shaft and sitting down just a few feet away. She was careful to keep just enough distance that Inri didn't bolt. As it was Inri slowly climbed the rest of the way out of the ventilation shaft and knelt down himself, ready to bolt at any wrong move.

"Do you have parents Inri?" She asked softly.

He shook his head.

"Did they get sick?"

Another head shake. He looked around and pointed at one person walking by. We all glanced over, he was pointing at a Batarian.

"Killed by Batarian's?"

He nodded slowly, sadly.

"How did you get here?"

He shrugged and looked down.

"Escape pod?"

Another nod and shrug.

"Why didn't C-sec try to find a relative?"

At that point he looked at Garrus and indicated his facial markings and then pointed to his own face and the lack of markings. Garrus winced and sighed.

"Even at his age he should have facial markings or at least the faded design if he's been alone for a long time. Our facial paint is designed to last for years and each colony has a unique design, like a...a human family crest?" Those of us who were human nodded at the description. "I think he's trying to indicate that his parents didn't have markings either, meaning that they'd lost the right to wear any markings, outcasts, barefaced. He wouldn't have any family to find, least none that would want him."

Inri flinched and hissed softly in Garrus's direction. He let out another sigh.

"If he arrived in an escape pod and that pod was brought aboard the Citadel, he's small enough to have been able to slip past any C-sec and make for the safest place possible, the ducts. Can you talk Inri?" Garrus asked in a soft voice trying not to startle the boy.

Inri stayed silent for several minutes, finally though he spoke. "Can...dun wanna."

"Would you like to come live with us Inri?" Alani's mother offered with a small smile.

I marveled at the woman's willingness to take in the child, he would need specialized food and that would cost quite a penny, especially if he wanted to go into the turian military. Another thing that surprised me about her willingness to take in the boy was that she would outlive him and that would be a hard blow for her and Alani later on. Asari really could be the epitome of maternal instinct.

Inri's mandibles started twitching as he looked back and forth between Alani, her mother and the duct shaft. He was obviously torn, probably believing that Alani's mother was having him on. Alani stepped a little closer to him and held out her hand. He met her gaze for a moment before taking her hand in his own and closing his eyes. Alani's eyes went black for a few minutes. Inri suddenly started crying as Alani's eyes went back to normal and he looked up at her mother. He nodded hesitantly and then pointed to the elder asari's markings and then to his own face, she smiled gently and nodded. He let out a soft chirping cry and jumped into her arms. She held him close as he cried and Alani moved to crawl into her mothers lap and help hold the young boy. Garrus cleared his throat softly.

"Well, mystery solved and one more kid off the street. I wish this happened more often for the duct rats but we're more likely to find a body then anything else." He sighed and turned to my group and held out his hand to me and I shook his hand. "Thank you for your help. I'll help them out once the...emotional moment...has passed." He was obviously uncomfortable with the display.

"Pleasure helping out officer, have a good day."

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

After that little adventure we made it to the hotel without further incident. Our protection detail had their own room though two of them joined us in ours and stood at attention at the door. The suite (I wouldn't call it anything else) was built like an apartment more then anything else and we each chose a room. None of us bothered to unpack, we simply set our suitcases down at the foot of our beds and started exploring the place. Dundee called dibs on the vid-screen and started watching some kind of crime show, apparently his plan to check out the Strip waylaid by his favorite show being on. I don't mind crime shows but it looked like it was mid season and I hated starting midway through a series, be it books or shows. Ripley eventually grabbed her weapons case and started to take apart and clean her weapons and didn't look at all talkative. I shrugged and called up a map of Zakera Ward on my 'tool and searched for an antique shop nearby. Might as well get a bit of cash, I wasn't planning on spending my savings unless it was on weapons. Finding one that looked like a good place to start I looked to the guards, both male.

"I want to visit a shop, one of you coming with me?" I asked.

They looked at each other before one poked his head out the door and called out.

"Hey, Bob!" Seriously? Bob? Just my luck, might as well call him Red Shirt.

"What's up?"

"Lt. Cmdr Mathias wants to go shopping, you want to go out?"

"Damn strait I do!"

Bob met me in the hall. He was a rather nondescript kind of guy. Caucasian, average height, military hair cut, the usual. The only thing that stood out what that he had pale blue eyes but had dark brown, almost black hair. We walked in silence out of the hotel and I led us to the shop by following the map on my 'tool. The store was called Zata Han's antiques. Bob raised a brow at me.

"You're into antiques?" I shook my head.

"Looking to sell."

"Ah."

We made our way inside and was greeted with the sight of a Volus, presumably Zata Han, being held in the air surrounded by a biotic glow. The glow originated from a, you guessed it, asari. And the kicker? She was wearing Eclipse colors. As Bob and I drew our pistols I had one thought.

_Shit_.

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

-Begin audio log-

"Saving the life of a Volus, worth one life debt." says the male voice and there is the sound of a pull on a cigarette.

"Ah?"

"Saving the life of a Volus _and _preventing any damage to his stock?"

"Oh I see what you're doing." the female laughs.

"Priceless." They say at the same time.

-End audio log-

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

yay another chappi done


	9. Chapter 9

Soooo. FYI...thanks to the awesome steam sale (Blast you Steam my wallet is empty!) =ahem= I now have Mass Effect and will be playing the entire series start to finish. This may cause a tiny bit of a slow down on both of my stories. No worries I will still be working on new chappies!

so...

yay next chappie!

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Chapter 8: Rockin' sockin' robots. 'Raine's POV

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

While the talk with Lucian helped, I still felt like I needed him by my side. The whole adventure was starting to loose its' charm and I was worried for his saftey. Overall though, the all encompassing ache I had felt was no longer threatening to paralyze me. I stayed laying on my bed for several minutes before giving my cheeks a smack and standing up. I wasn't going to let this beat me. I needed to do something constructive. Where did Tali say she was going? I drew a blank for several long moments before remembering she mentioned something about shooting things.

Our room had a single small sink with a filtration system installed and a towel hung off of a small handle bar to the right of it. A small sanitizing unit was right below the towel to clean the cloth after use. I washed my face carefully and tried to clear away most of the signs of my little break down. Unlike some lucky people I'm a messy crier, my eyes get puffy, nose runny and the whole nine. Finally satisfied that I looked decent despite my eyes still being puffy I opened the sanitizer and tossed the towel in and closed the lid.

Now I was at a bit of a loss since it didn't turn on automatically. It had several buttons on the top but the symbols were quarian, not human. At least they were color coded (red, green and blue) so I shrugged, figuring that green was go/start and pressed it. Nothing happened for a few moments and then a soft whirring filled the air and I relaxed. I'd been worried I'd somehow chosen to incinerate the towel, which would have been embaressing to say the least. I needed to remember to ask Tali what the other buttons did as well as what the symbols meant.

I left the room and wandered down toward the shooting range, about the only place I knew how to get to other then the mess hall without getting lost. The sound of a pistol firing let me know that I was on the right track. Opening the door I stepped inside and saw Tali shooting one of the dummies at a rapid fire pace. I moved out of the door way and to the side and then just stood there for a few moments at I watched her fire the pistol until it let out it's alert noise that it was over heated. She then set down the pistol while it went through its' cooling mode, picked up another from the table and repeated the process again and again, always switching into a pistol that had completed its' cool down.

"She's been at it since we got here." Kel'el's soft voice startled me as I hadn't realized he was standing against the wall. I looked over him and then back at Tali.

"Is she alright?"

"Just upset, she sees what happened as a kind of betrayal and shes right to in a way. But there's the chance that he was just reflecting his aunts' hatred. She is still upset with him regardless and might be for a good while."

I nodded at that. How many times in human history alone had the young tried to mimic their elders and in turn accepted hatreds that were not necessarily their own? How many times had that inherited hatred caused fights or even wars? It was amazing in a way that racism/speciesism wasn't merely a human condition but a organic condition and could affect even a close knit familial group like the Quarians.

Finally Tali seemed to run out of steam and set the latest pistol down onto the table and didn't pick up another. She leaned against the table, head bowed. I walked over to her side and laid a hand on her shoulder. She twisted around suddenly and wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug. I winced when I heard her soft sobbing and felt guilty that in a way I had caused her upset just by being on the ship.

"Hey, easy Tali. It'll be okay." I said softly as I rubbed her back.

"How can it ever be okay? I thought he was my friend!" Her voice was thick with sorrow.

"You know..." I started slowly, "I don't think you should give up on your friendship just yet hun."

"Why?" Tali sniffled and looked up at me. I realized suddenly she was about two inches shorter then me as I gazed down into her filtered gaze.

"We saw how his aunt was Tali, he may just have been mimicing her anger. If he doesn't actually feel that way then you guys might be able to mend your friendship."

"The only way I'm going to forgive that bosh'tet is if he apologizes to you during a ship gathering where everyone will hear him." Her voice took on a cold tone.

I shrugged a bit in response and shifted so I had one arm around her shoulder and started leading her toward the door. I got a nod from Kel'el as he moved to put away the equipment.

"Then make sure to tell him that." I led her down the hall and thought for a moment about what could help to distract her, distract us both, from what was bothering us. I hit on an idea. "You have a place to watch movies around here?"

"Movies? You mean vids?" I nodded. "Yeah, we have a small recreation room, it's not much."

"That's fine, doesn't have to be big but I figured we could use some time to ourselves. Having a Movie Night is one way to go about things."

"What kind of movies do you have in mind?" Tali asked with a tilt of her head.

I opened up my omni-tool to check and see if a few movie titles existed in this world or not and grinned.

"Well, would you rather fantasy/action or suspense/drama?" I asked looking at the titles I had in mind.

"Hmm, good genres...I think I'm in the mood for some fantasy."

"Lord of the Rings Trilogy it is!" I said with a grin.

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Tali hadn't been lying when she said that their rec-room wasn't much. A mid-sized vid-screen, a single small couch that could barely fit two people and what I assumed was a gaming system though I wasn't entirely sure how it worked.

After some fumbling in figuring out how to use the vid-screen and loading the movies up on what amounted to the 'modern' version of Netflix (Charon videos), we set down to watch the movies. Tali asked a few questions here and there which I was happy to explain. Mostly it was concerning the magic in the world presented and the different cultures. She cried a bit when Gandalf fell with the balrog and tried to keep quiet about it but I could still hear her sniffling. About halfway through the second movie though (four and a half hours later) I noticed a small whistling noise.

Glancing around I was able to find the source of the noise, which was reclined right next to me. I paused the movie and leaned closer to Tali and grinned. She'd fallen asleep and the whistling was coming from her. I stood up slowly from the small couch as not to disturb her and started looking around for a blanket or something to cover her with.

The door opened right as I found a small blanket tucked under the couch itself. I stood and looked up seeing Kel'el. I put a finger to my lips to try to indicate to remain silent, hopefully it was a universal symbol, and then moved to cover Tali up with the blanket. She murmured softly in her sleep pulling the blanket tight and shifted to lay down on the couch. I grinned at the action and moved out of the room, Kel'el followed.

"It was getting late." He said as the door closed behind us. "I was wondering where you two had gone."

"Figured watching a few mov...vids, together would help as a distraction."

"A good idea. Another reason I wanted to find you is because we're having a small holiday and I didn't know if you'd been told or if you wanted to participate."

"I hadn't heard. What kind of holiday is it?" I asked, intrigued.

"It's just a gathering of the ship where the youngsters show off some sort of skill really, it's not anything big, not like the Pilgrimage."

"Which is the passage rite to adulthood." I said.

"Exactly." He nodded at my understanding. "This isn't quite as big of an event, like I said, but it does help us to see where our younglings' skills lay, where they might need improvement or encouragement. It is for those too young yet for pilgrimage show off what they can do. Some are best at hacking, some best at building things from scratch, things like that. We call it 'Perillia', loosely translated it means 'Gifts of the children'. Tali told me that she's going to hack everyone's omni-tools to play a melody, show off her hacking skills. Last year she built a small robot from scratch and had it doing near precision jumps."

I had to bite back a laugh as that reminded me of Tali's comment to Shepard 'Give me a chunk of scrap metal, a circuit board, and some element zero, and I'll have it making precision jumps.' Guess she was well on her way to making that an accurate statement. I tapped my chin thoughtfully and looked at Kel'el, tilting my head.

"So since I'm a 'youngling' to your culture you're wanting to know if I'd like to do something?"

He nodded.

"Well, does it have to be something mechanical?"

"No. If you want to share something of your own culture that would work as well. A movie, a song, a game, an old story." He shrugged. "Anything you'd like to share with us. As long as it's appropriate, there will be children present who just got their suits." He added the last hastily causing me to laugh.

"So when is Perillia?"

"Day after tomorrow actually. I know it's not much time to prepare but..." I waved a hand and smiled.

"I have something in mind."

"Good to hear it. By the way, after the holiday we're going to try out moving targets. I've got a few mechs we can use for target practice and have gotten permission to use one of the few vacant cargo holds as a training course. Concussive rounds only."

"Yeah? Cool!" He chuckled.

"Thought you might like that."

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

Tali made her way back to our room sometime in the night because she was in her bunk when I got up. I cleaned up and slipped on my suit before checking the time. We were going to be late for the days practice. I shook Tali awake, she swiped at me in response, and waited for her to run through her own morning routine. I heard an unfamiliar whirring noise while she sat still and blinked.

"What is that noise?"

She held up one finger in response to my question and I waited for several moments as the whirring continued.

"Ah sorry about that. The suit helmet is designed with several cleaning tools." She said answering my question.

"Ah, so even in your suit you have to what, brush your teeth?"

"We don't get the level of bacteria a human might when eating but there is still a build up of residue from the food paste."

I nodded at that. Normally she was up first and had to wake me up so I wasn't surprised that I hadn't noticed the noise before now. We both stood up and started down the hall for the range. I thought of something.

"Do they add flavor to those food pastes or are they bland?"

"Oh some of them are flavored. We get one flavored one each day, the rest are pretty bland. I hear some of the ones sold on the Citadel taste like paper though." She made a 'blegh' noise.

"Doesn't sound good." I made a face at the thought.

We made our way into the 'range and stopped. Kel'el wasn't in the room and there were no guns out on the table. What stopped us though were a pair of mechs standing against the far wall. We glanced at each other and then back to the mechs. I grinned suddenly.

"Hey Tali?"

"Yeah?"

"Want to have some fun?"

"Sure..." Her voice was wary.

I laughed and motioned to the mechs. Opening a hacking program I was easily able to use the app to hack past the mechs low grade defenses and take control of it. I made it move past the table and to the right and had it raise its hands, closing them into fists. Standing in front of the table on the right side I indicated for Tali to do the same. She eyed the two mechs for a moment before sighing and hacking the other one, moving it to stand in front of mine.

"We're going to get in trouble." She said.

"Why? We're just going to shoot them up later anyway."

"Really?"

"Yeah Kel'el told me last night, he's gotten permission to use a currently empty cargo bay as a training course. We're going to use concussive rounds, so these bad boys are going to get pretty beat up anyway."

"Alright then. How long per round and are we taking turns with the blows?"

"Eh...five minutes? And sure, counter attacks are allowed though" She nodded and set her timer on her omni-tool to five minutes.

"One...two...three...GO!" I shouted.

Her mech darted forward and aimed a punch at my mechs 'head. I was able to get my mech to back up in time to avoid a serious blow but it still got a nasty dent in the lower 'chin'.

"Ha! That's it! Go for the Optics!" Tali whooped.

I grinned as I realized I may very well have helped her with that little catch phrase. I typed in some quick instructions and had my mech counter her next punch by ducking under the blow and landing a punch in her mechs middle where the upper torso connected to the lower. Sparks flew as her mech stumbled back and Tali let out a curse. A few quick entries into her own Omni-tool and the sparks stopped, most likely she rerouted the mechs power along the undamaged wiring.

I smiled to myself, happy with the damage I had done to her own mech. Another key press later though and her mech was lunging forward with a punch. I typed in the instructions for it to dodge and yelped in surprise as her punch proved to be a feint designed to allow her mech to get close in a solid Headbutt. My mech fell to the ground with a mechanical whimper.

"Hey!" I glared at Tali.

"You never said headbutts were out." She answered smugly.

I laughed in response and typed a few commands in. Luckily a mechs data core was in the chest and not the head so really all that had happened was some damage was caused to the mechs optics which hampered its ability to see. Since she wanted to play it that way I set the next strike which had my mech lumber forward and kick out to trip her own mech. Her mech landed on its' ass and my own wobbled a bit before stabilizing its' balance. I let out a relieved sigh and grinned at her as she glared at me.

She shifted her hips and humphed at me. A few commands later and her mech was back on its feet. Our mechs circled each other slowly and then her mech lashed out with a sideways slash that I wasn't expecting. Her mechs blow struck at the neck of mine and the next thing we knew my mechs head hit the ground with a thud. Like a chicken with its head cut off my mech started walking in circles hands outstretched and searching.

"What is going on here?!" Kel'el's voice caused us both to whirl around. He was standing in the door way with his arms crossed.

Tali gulped and started stuttering. I placed a hand on her shoulder to quiet her and smiled at her reassuringly.

"It was my idea Kel'el." Looking to the elder Quarian. "A bit of stress relief while we waited for you. We're going to be shooting them up anyway so...I didn't really see any harm? Ya know a couple rounds of rockin' sockin' robots? Just...some fun?" I finished not so confidently as he continued to level his gaze on me. It really was hard to tell if he was upset or not. Why did their face plates have to be fogged over?

Kel'el didn't say anything for several long moments. Finally he sighed and walked over to the mechs. My mech was still walking around crazily and Kel'el opened his own omni-tool and shut both mechs down, mine crashing to the floor in an undignified heap. He turned back to the two of us and leveled what I figured to be a very stern glare in our direction, I wasn't sure as I still hadn't gotten the quarian body language down yet but Tali definitely radiated worry.

"Well then, we were going to start off with testing your hacking skills today, target practice would have been after lunch. Since you were kind enough to admit that it was your idea 'Raine you get to repair the headless mech. Tali, obviously you got past the easier defensive programs lets move you up a few levels."

Well crap, I thought looking at the mech worriedly. He led Tali over to the undamaged mech and left me to wander over toward the headless one. I picked up the head and turned it over so I could look at the wiring. Most of the wires seemed to be cleanly pulled free of where they would go or cut in two but several others looked like they'd been ripped right out of their placement and I wasn't quite sure what to do with those. I looked around for a tool kit and saw one near the door. Grabbing the kit I wandered back over to the fallen mech and looked things over. Logically speaking after working on the electrical system of several cars I could piece together which wires could be repaired by trimming away the plastic covering (each wire was wrapped in a plastic tube that was color coded), and which wires I would have trouble with as they were just ripped out.

I started on the easier and more familiar process and grabbed a wire trimmer, a crimper and some crimp holders (small little plastic tubes that you slipped the wires into in order to 'recreate' the original connection, you then used the crimper to 'lock' the wires in place within the holder). It was rather simple and familiar work to match up the colored wires and restore the connections.

Finally finished with that part of the work I looked over the wires that had been ripped clean and frowned. There was no clear marker at that point as to which wire went where and I had about seven wires to go. I looked back at the underside of the head and just barely saw some small (read VERY small) symbols. Blinking I looked back to the 'neck' and saw matching symbols. Grinning to myself I realized I had found out how to tell which wire went where in this situation but sadly was left wondering how to reconnect them. Did I need some sort of soldering tool?

As I looked over things I found my hand reaching toward the tool kit on its own and forced it to hold still. I felt the beginnings of another migraine and sighed in relief as I realized my body knew what to do. Forcing my movements to be slow so I could watch what I was doing closely I found I did indeed grab what looked similar to a soldering tool.

What felt like _hours_ later I was finally done repairing the mech and had a little better understanding of what I did to repair it. My head however was pounding. I let out a soft sighed and leaned against the mechs cold metal chest plate. I found just the right pressure point and started to drift off. A hand shaking my arm drew me back to full wakefulness and I found myself growling as the pain came back full force.

"'Raine? Are you alright? You fell asleep." Tali's voice was filled with concern.

I blinked blearily up at her and frowned.

"Head hurts." I answered simply, the growl still faint in my voice. "Go 'way."

"Another headache so soon?" Kel'el said with a frown as he gently forced me to my feet. I growled lightly at him and tried to pull free but he kept his grip firm. "Let's get you to the med-bay."

As before Tali and Kel'el led me to the med-bay, and as before the same friendly nurse did a few scans and found nothing wrong. A few pills of pain medication and another long walk later found me back in my bunk struggling to find a simi-comfortable position that would still place just the right amount of pressure against my temple. Finding the right spot I drifted away into sleep.

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

The next day we didn't have any practice and found most people preparing for Parillia. I felt loads better after my rest and spent some time looking through my omni-tool checking the song history for Earth to see if the songs I had in mind already existed or not. I smiled gently, pleased to see that many bands and song writers existed in this universe that existed in my own. I didn't have my guitar, doubted anyone on board might have one but I went to Kel'el to ask him if anyone had picked one up.

As expected no one had found or claimed one and I found myself filled with disappointment despite expecting the news. He was kind enough to help me find an application on the extranet that I could download to my Omni-tool that 'mimicked the sound of an old wood Acoustic Guitar so well that you couldn't tell the difference'. I downloaded the app and asked Kel'el to show me to the unused cargo bay so I could practice.

I got waylaid though before I could reach the cargo bay in question when my 'tool went off. I glanced at it and saw that I had an active call. I clicked 'answer'.

"Hello?"

'Heya Pinky!'

"Ah, Falare?" I blinked in surprise, glad for once that the omni-tool didn't include video otherwise she would see my shock.

'Yep, finally convinced the elders to let me give you a call.'

"Right." I said with a wince. "They don't much care for outside contact for you. I'm surprised I got the letter from you now that I think about it."

'Bah, just have to remind them that you were trained here and you know what we are and yada yada. That got them to get up off their butts and let me give you a call.'

I smiled at her response. She really seemed a little more carefree this way. But then the only time I'd seen her in the game she'd been frantic for the safety of her elder sister after the reaper attack.

"I'm glad you took the time to call. Did you get the image?" I asked recalling she had requested an image of my engagement ring.

'Yes I did. It looks very lovely! I thought the rings were supposed to be gold though?'

"Eh." I shrugged then realized she couldn't see it. "I don't much care for gold. Silver is more my style."

'That's just like you. What was that phrase you like? 'Keep it simply stupid'?"

I choked on a laugh. "It's 'Keep it simple, stupid.'"

'That's it! Hey, did you have any other old human games to check out? I just beat the Biohazard series you suggested before you left to visit your man. How's he doing?'

"He's well. Ah, give me a sec? I apologize in advance if I lose you!" I opened up another window on my 'tool and grinned as I heard Falare humming in the background. A quick search later proved my hopes correct. Several games that I liked existed, just like with my song search. "Okay still there?"

'Yep!'

"Check out Bioshock. Great game. Do _not_ touch Bioshock two, its' a POS in my opinion, but Bioshock Infinite is pretty good too and the true sequel."

'What is it with you humans and naming things 'bio'. Also, POS?'

"Ah, 'Piece of Shit'. I never shared that with you?"

'No, you hardly ever swear except when your mad.' I nodded, that was pretty much how I acted. Not that I didn't know how to swear, just normally didn't see a need to unless I was royally pissed off. Then I got clever with my insults.

"So hows Rila?" I said taking a gambit.

'She's doing well. Practicing her meditative techniques right now.'

"Let her know I said 'hi'?"

'Sure! Hey look I got to go, limited time on the phone. Write me later about life on the Flotilla alright?'

"I will, got a holiday of theirs coming up, Parillia, I'll let you know how it goes okay?"

'Great! Talk to you later Pinky!'

I laughed. "Later Blue Bird."

I closed my omni-tool and started off again for the cargo bay only to be stopped by another beep from my 'tool. I blinked, a bit surprised and opened up the message. It was from Lucian.

-Chief is stable. He's paralyzed from the waist down right now but we're going to the Citadel so he can get treatment to get him back on his feet. No training for a while because they have to investigate the explosion.

Stay safe my love,

Your Darkness.-

I let out a sign of relief at the message and smiled. At least Lucian's fellow N7 trainee was going to be okay. I was a bit worried at first when I read about the paralysis but with the technology available to the species of the galaxy I shouldn't be surprised that they would be able to repair the damage. Hell, all I had to do was remind myself about the Lazarus Project.

This time around I was able to reach the cargo bay without any other calls or messages coming through. I tapped my omni-tool to open the app Kel'el had showed me. A glow appeared from my omni-tool, shifting into the shape of an old Acoustic Guitar. I smiled and brushed my fingers along the 'hard light' shape. I gave a soft sigh at the lack of...feeling... from the hard light form and moved to strum a few bars. To an untrained ear it really wound sound just like the real thing but it was lacking that heart, that soul of the wood. Still, I practiced the song I had in mind all night.

After 'noon' the next day a large portion of the ships inhabitants crowded into the same massive room that Rhys'til's trial was held in. Not everyone would fit into the room and most had to stay manning their posts but Tali told me that the event would be broadcast on the ships general channel so that everyone would be able to see.

Several youngsters came and went up on the stage and many times it was simply adorable to watch as several younglings obviously had just gotten their suits. Many had built small robots to do simple tasks like lifting a rock or making jumps. It was a lot like a science fair in grade school, then middle school and then high school as it went from the youngest to the eldest.

Rhys'til got on stage and I watched closely. At the moment I was willing to try to give him the benefit of the doubt and try to extend an olive branch at a later time. Complimenting him on his own project, a robot doing, well...the robot, might be a step toward reconciliation between him and Tali.

Tali's project amused me greatly. She did indeed hack everyone's omni-tools, including the Captains, her fathers and my own special one gifted to me by the Lore Keeper, showing off her brilliance at the skill. The song that played had me laughing softly though, Daft Punk's Technologic. Considering the climate in several areas in the Mass Effect series it definitely sounded like techno was very much 'in' at the moment as everyone started dancing or swaying to the beat.

Finally it was my turn on the stage and I moved nervously to the front. I'd played for my friends a few times but never in front of this many people. Gulping I called up the guitar program and looked out among the crowd.

"This song was written originally by Jimmy Webb in the human year of nineteen seventy-seven. In nineteen eighty-four, four great country singers banded together to sing this song, each of them the very image of outlaws in country music. These singers, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash formed a group and launched a star album under the same name as this song, a song that transcends time; The Highwayman."

With that I started playing the opening bars of the song, I closed my eyes to the sight of the crowd and opened myself to the soul of the music.

"I was a highwayman  
Along the coach roads I did ride  
With the sword and pistol by my side  
And many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade  
And many a soldier shed his life blood on my blade  
They fin'lly hung me in the spring of twenty-five  
But I am still alive

I was a sailor  
And I was born upon the tide  
And with the sea I did abide  
I sailed a schooner 'round the horn of Mexico  
I went aloft to furl the mainsail in a blow  
And when the yards broke off they say that I got killed  
But I am living still

I was a dam builder  
Across the river deep and wide  
Where steel and water did collide  
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado  
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below  
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound  
But I am still around  
Seems like it all goes 'round and 'round  
And 'round and 'round

I'll fly a starship  
Across the universe divide  
Until I reach the other side  
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can  
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again  
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain  
But I will remain  
And I'll be back again  
And again, and again, and again."

I fell silent, a few tears trickling down my cheeks. I tended to cry a bit sometimes when I sang, though it was dependant on the song. Silence filled the hall and I opened my eyes to the crowd of quarians staring at me. Moments later and they all burst into applause and cheered. Tali ran up on the stage and gave me a hug.

"That was amazing! I didn't know you could sing!"

I shrugged in embarrassment. "I'm glad ya liked it kiddo."

I looked around the crowd again and smiled to myself as everyone started talking at once about the show. Music really was a universal language.

-=-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-=-

-Begin audio log-

"You played music at random points throughout the missions you went on." says the male voice.

"When I could get away with it and we weren't doing any kind of stealth mission you're damn right I did."

"Got you in trouble with Garrus the once." The male laughs. "still have that one on file."

"How was I supposed to know that it translated to him like that?!"

Louder laughter echos.

-End audio log-


	10. Chapter 10

Next one up!

-=-=-=-=*-*-*-*/*/*/=-=-=-=-

Chapter 9: Cake. Lucian POV.

-=-=-=-=*-*-*-*/*/*/=-=-=-=-

Eclipse asari. Dangerous biotic fighters, good with a gun and they had better then average armor if the games were to be believed. Also tended to have better training then most other mercenary groups. The Eclipse asari mentioned on Illium were only allowed to wear the mercenary groups colors after their first kill and no sooner otherwise they weren't considered hard enough to be a merc. I wondered for a brief moment if this was true of all Eclipse 'sisters' regardless of local or if it was just the group on Illium that had that particular rule. Either way I wasn't particularly thrilled at being given a potential chance to find out.

Bob and I kept our pistols trained on the Eclipse asari, ready to fire if she made to attack us. She glanced at us and gave what I assumed was supposed to be a sultry grin but came across more like a sadistic sneer and then she turned back to the volus mostly ignoring our presence in the shop.

"Looks like it's your lucky day you fat little fool. I'd hate to get Alliance cleaning bills because I popped your suit. You remember what we talked about, understood?"

"*gasp* Yes of course! *gasp* Never happen again! *gasp* It will be here tomorrow! *gasp* You have my word!" His voice was pained.

The volus, as mentioned, was being held up in a field of biotic energy and was spinning in slow circles near the ceiling and was struggling to reach out to grab onto something to stop his momentum. In fact it looked like the asari was keeping him just out of reach of an old style fan that was spinning lazily. My brow twitched as I held back to urge to chuckle at his predicament. It wasn't exactly a funny situation from his point of view but it was a bit humorous from my end.

"Ma'am." I said keeping my voice calm and humor free, barely. "I'm going to have to ask you to put the volus down. Gently, if you would be so kind."

"Oh, I suppose I can afford to be nice." She said with a clear pout in her voice.

She flashed me a look that had me shivering...in disgust. The volus started to float toward the floor and when he was still a good three feet from the ground the biotic energy disappeared and he fell to the ground with a loud 'Oomph!'.

"Oops. Seems I lost my concentration. So very sorry about that."

Her tone was filled with dark amusement proving that she wasn't sorry in the slightest as she turned away from the volus. Bob and I moved out of her way as she headed for the exit, still keeping our weapons trained on her but we had our fingers off of the trigger. She paused suddenly and smirked in my direction. I had to fight back a natural urge to step back in disgust...or shoot her out of preservational instinct.

"I do love a man in uniform. You should look me up some time big boy."

I'd rather kiss a black mamba, I thought to myself.

"Sorry, engaged." I said instead.

"Oh honey, it's not like she'd find out."

Bob made a choked noise and looked like he was about to say something but I held up my hand to silence him.

"You do realize that if the person I'm engaged to is an asari she would indeed 'find out' the next time we meld?"

The Eclipse sister pouted at me and started to look over at Bob.

"He doesn't like anything with tits." I said without thinking.

The Eclipse sister and Bob both looked at me. The asari with a surprised look and Bob with a pissed off glare. I raised a brow at him and the asari swung back to look at him. His face switched from a glare to a bright blank smile an instant before she was fully turned and she stared at him. She sighed softly in disappointment as she sauntered out the door. Once she was out of sight we put our pistols away and Bob punched my shoulder.

"What the hell man? Why'd you say that?" He asked hissing.

"Did you really want to be subjected to her flirting? I could call her back for you if you're that desperate." I started to move toward the door.

"I...No!" A look of fear flashed across his face and he grabbed his arm to stop me. "Fine, you have a point. Just...don't do that again."

I snorted at his demand and moved to help the volus to his feet. He'd been rolling around on his back unable to stand, like a turtle. Once on his feet he immediately called up his omni-tool and ran some sort of scan. Finally he let out a sigh of relief and looked up at me.

"Thank you so much Earth-clan. *gasp* I do apologize for my rudeness, I am Zata Han the owner of this fine esablishment. *gasp* I was checking my suit integrity." He indicated his Omni-tool.

"That's alright." I said with a shrug. "I've heard horrible things happen if your suit integrity is compromised, that comes first."

"Still you saved me Earth-clan *gasp* Aena was not...happy with me."

"Owe her some money then?" I asked carefully. I'd caught what he'd said about something arriving tomorrow and doubted that the issue involved a shortage of cash like some shake downs.

"No, a shipment of a rare item ran late. *gasp* She did not find the delay acceptable. *gasp* She threatened to kill me if it happens again! *gasp* She was squeezing me in her biotic field *gasp* my suits alarms were screaming. *gasp* Thank you for stopping her! *gasp* And you did it without any damage to my goods! *gasp* I am very grateful Earth-clan!"

"No problem." I said.

"Was there something I could help with? *gasp* We sell and buy very old and rare items. *gasp*"

"Looking to sell actually."

"Ah. *gasp* This way."

Zata Han wandered over toward the only desk in the room. I sat down in the larger chair and took out a small container I'd found which I'd placed six of the twenties into. He sat in the smaller chair which was sitting very low to the ground, so low that you could only see the top of his head over the table. A moment later and the chair rose until Zata Han was sitting level with me and he clicked his...claws?...together.

"What item are you *gasp* looking to sell today Earth-clan?"

"An old pre-contact twenty dollar bill from Earth. Mint condition." I placed the bill I'd grabbed onto the table.

"Oh my!*gasp* I haven't seen *gasp* one of these on the *gasp* Citadel in years! *gasp*" His breathing increased due to his obvious excitement.

With the press of a button a small scanner rose up from the table and he indicated for me to place the bill on the scanner. I placed it onto the scanner and watched closely as it ran several passes over the bill.

"Very nice. This is a genuine twenty dollar bill. *gasp* It is excellent shape. *gasp* I can offer you ten thousand credits."

I snorted and reached for the bill. "Yeah no."

"Ah! Wait wait! *gasp*" He reached out both hands. "The average value is fifteen thousand. I can offer you that much."

I sat back slowly, crossed my legs and threaded my fingers together, my thumbs tapping together lightly. I raised a brow at him and waited for several long moments. He shifted nervously under my unyielding stare. It took a few moments and then he cracked and offered a higher price.

"Fine I can offer *gasp* sixteen thousand." He was offering the average value now which was not what I wanted.

I let out a sigh and leaned forward. I gave a small, cold smile to Zata Han that had him squirming in his seat.

"I can take this to a private auction and get forty thousand credits for it." I said in a soft, cold voice. "Don't think I'm some idiot you can scam. I'd hate for our budding 'friendship' to end on such a sour note."

He fidgeted for several moments, his gaze going from me then down to the bill and back up. He finally slumped and sighed.

"I can offer twenty-one thousand. *gasp* I can't go any higher." He said in a defeated tone.

I tilted my head as I looked him over. Most shops did only offer around sixteen thousand so it was a very good deal in comparison, and just over half of the value in a private auction. In all honesty I didn't want to go through the hassle of setting up a private auction, mainly because I didn't have the kind of contacts needed for such an event at the moment. I leaned back and bit back a satisfied smirk careful to keep my face blank.

"I have others. Heirlooms. Can you guarantee me this same price in the future for each twenty dollar bill I bring in, _in writing_, if I only sell them to you?" I stressed the need for a long term agreement as I really didn't want to fight with someone else over pricing.

"You have more? *gasp*" I could practically see the money signs in his masked gaze as he worked out the benefit of setting up such an arrangement with me. "Yes of course! *gasp* Let me write up the terms!"

Several minutes later Zata Han had a data pad document available. I read the terms carefully as I was a firm believer of reading the fine print, Illium would hate me if I went there. The only real stipulation Zata Han had put in was that I would only get the twenty-one thousand pricing if the condition of the bills I brought in in the future were in the same as the one we were discussing now. At which point if they were in lesser condition he reserved the right to purchase the bills from me at a lower price. I tapped that part and looked up at him.

"Unless the bill is damaged beyond repair or recovery I would like to have this part modified that the lowest you'll offer is your original price of ten thousand."

"I would be willing to add that but only if the *gasp* bill has no tears. If the bill is crumpled but not torn *gasp* then I will go no lower then ten thousand. *gasp* Any rips in the cloth would severely lower the worth. *gasp*Is that an acceptable compromise?"

"It is." I answered.

The terms were modified and both of us were happy with the results. He printed off paper documents and I read over those as well to confirm that the digital and physical copies matches. I looked up at him after a moment.

"Why have both?" I indicated the data pad and the paper.

"Digital copies can be modified, by either party. *gasp* I use paper documents to act as *gasp* an extra level of security for my customers. *gasp* The paper is specially treated so that *gasp* they cannot simply be copied either. *gasp* I trust this is acceptable?"

"It is indeed." Satisfied with the results I signed both the physical and digital copies and then Zata Han did the same. He accessed his omni-tool and connected to mine and transferred over the funds to my account. I stood and carefully shook his hand.

"Pleasure doing business with you Zata Han."

"A pleasure indeed Earth-clan. *gasp* Please visit again soon."

With a wave to Zata Han, Bob and I left the shop. I glanced at my 'tool and looked over the map. The shop wasn't too far from the Silversun strip so I sent off a quick message to Dundee to see if he was available. A few moments later and I got a message back.

~Nah. Gonna catch some sleep. Tomorrow?~

I shrugged and typed back a response.

~Sure. I'll be back at the hotel soon.~

-=-=-=-=*-*-*-*/*/*/=-=-=-=-

Things went well enough over the next few days. Ripley kept to herself for the most part working on her guns or meditating or working out. The only conversation we got out of her at that point was scathing comments directed at Dundee when he was being obnoxious. I think she was a bit closer to Chief then I thought as the longer we went without word of his condition the harsher her words got and the more she isolated herself from the rest of us.

I finally got to arrange a meet up with Dundee and his guard, Rodriguez, and got a few games in at the Strip. He kept getting side tracked by gaming specials that were going on and was normally fiddling with his 'tool deep into the 'night'. If they were anything like the Steam Summer Sales I was used to, the amount he quoted us as having in his savings account was probably being cut in half.

We started off simple with Shattered Eezo when we got to the arcade. It started off pretty badly as I wasn't familiar with the controls but once I got the controls down, I dominated our matches much to Dundee's dismay. Bob and Rodriguez were betting each other by the end of things on if I would hold the winning streak, which I did.

After that Dundee announced that he was hungry and that he knew of a great ramen shop on the Zakera Ward that some friends had told him about when they last visited. I looked over the prices of the shop when we got there and had to shake my head at the prices the shop was charging for the food. In fact I was pretty sure this was the same ramen shop from Mass Effect 2.

I stopped Dundee before he sat down and did a quick search on the extranet for the average pricing on Earth for the same food that the shop was offering. I wasn't a fool and I was sure that the shop was taking advantage of the Citadels lack of knowledge of such an 'Earth delicacy'. Sighing when I found that they were indeed charging double the rates on Earth I moved to sit in a chair. Dundee followed and the guards took the seats on either side of us and turned to watch the crowd. As the server moved over to us with a smile I returned the smile and indicated my omni-tool and the prices listed.

The server went pale and looked around frantically before making a motion at me to close my Omni-tool. I raised a brow at him and left the 'tool open for several more moments before closing it. The server looked exceptionally nervous but smiled and took our orders advising us softly of a price significantly lower then the ones listed on the display. He'd gotten my intent to announce his price gouging if he didn't lower his prices for us.

Dundee watched the interaction closely and when the server went to get the food prepared he nudged my shoulder.

"What did you do?" He asked softly.

"Ramen isn't an Earth delicacy, not in the sense that he's trying to sell it anyway. It can be some of the cheapest food available. Quick and easy to make" I kept my voice soft and waved at the sign which showed one of the more simple ramen dishes at twenty credits. "The least expensive dish on that list is pretty much the same cost of a high end ramen dish on Earth. He's taking advantage of his customers ignorance."

"Shouldn't we report him then?" Dundee said with a frown.

"Nah, if someone isn't willing to take the time to research the product that they are buying then I don't care. As long as he knows better then to try to rip us off." I shrugged.

"That's kind of a cold outlook." He said raising a brow at me.

"Think of it this way. If it looks too good to be true then it normally is. If you're not smart enough to realize it and read the fine print or do your research before buying then I'm not going to help. It's like my favorite phrase from an old game."

"Ah?" He tilted his head.

"Yep. 'The cake is a lie.'"

"Okay?" Dundee looked confused and that caused me to laugh.

"The game is a bit of a puzzle game involving an AI gone rogue. She keeps telling you that if you solve all the puzzles like a good test subject you'll get a special cake that she made just for you. The one time she _does_ offer to give you the cake is while you're in the process of escaping the facility, the path to it however leads to a trap that kills you."

"Ah, so if you blindly believe her offer it's game over."

"Exactly. The offer was too good to be true. Mind you the first time I saw it I knew it was a trap and wanted to see what would happen sooo..." I shrugged.

"Jumped into the trap head first eh?"

"Yep. She essentially drops you into an 'oven' and 'cooks' you."

Dundee laughed at that. "I should look for that game. Sounds fun."

The server brought over our ramen bowls and we dug in. I indicated for our guards to take a seat but they shook their heads and declined the offer. With a shrug I took my time eating and looked around at the crowd.

It was a normal crowd in the sense that everyone was going about their business shopping or browsing or arguing prices with vendors in the hopes to get a discount. It was amusing in a way to see that even with all the different species in one place that things really didn't change all that much. Suddenly I caught a glimpse of a tiny teal skinned form making a beeline for my location.

The guards moved to block the tiny form and I held up a hand to stop them. Setting my bowl back down I turned fully in my seat to face the girl. Dundee ignored the situation and focused solely on his food causing me to roll my eyes. With another glance back at the crowd I saw her mother and new brother Inri, krogan doll in hand, walking over at a more sedate pace. I let out a soft chuckle as she skidded to a stop in front of me and gave her a pat on her head.

"Hey kid, what's the hurry?"

"Lu!" She bounced on her toes in front of me and then held out a closed fist. "Close your eyes and hold out your hand!"

I laughed softly at her antics, it reminded me of my siblings when they were younger, before their teen years when they suddenly 'knew everything'. I closed my eyes and held out my hand as she instructed and she placed something cold in my hand.

"Okay! Open!" She chirped.

I opened my eyes and looked over the object she placed into my hand. It looked like it was a small silvery white stone no bigger then a quarter and had carvings in it. It felt cool to the touch and I marvelled for a moment as the stone didn't seem to quickly absorb any of my body heat, I tend to run a higher temp then most people, and become warmer like most other stones did. The carvings were also unfamiliar to me. I looked up at Alani.

"What's this?"

"It's Bismuth! It's specially treated to negate any radioactivity and has one of the...lowest?" She glanced to her mother who had caught up with her and smiled when her mother nodded. Inri was staying hidden behind his new mothers legs, mandibles clicking nervously. I noticed that he had white face paint on his cheeks now, matching the design on the older asari's cheeks. "It has one of the lowest values of thermal conductivity so that's why it will remain cool in your hand for a long time. The heat transfer is slow!"

"Well that is amazing." I shared an amused look with her mother.

"She's very interested in stones and minerals right now, talks about becoming a mineralogist all the time." Her mother moved over and held out her hand to me. "I'm Kilra R'toal, I do apologize for not introducing myself the first time we met."

"It's alright, you were more concerned with the little ones so it's understandable." I shook her hand lightly. "Lucian Mathias."

"Mom!" Alani tugged on her mothers hand and pointed at the stone. "Tell him about the carvings!"

Kilra laughed while I looked down at the carvings. The were vaguely celtic looking but flowed oddly and the design itself was hard for the eyes to track and make sense of. It took me several moments to make out the shape of a circular shield in front of a sword.

"The markings are something asari refer to as the 'guardians maze'. I don't know if you've seen it but the main image is of a sword behind a shield."

"Yeah made that out." I said. I tilted my head and frowned slightly. I thought I saw the image of a brain? "You said main image which means there is more then one. Is the other image a brain?"

"Yes! Most don't see the other image, I'm amazed!" She shook her head and smiled at me. "It's rather complicated but to simplify we gift objects with this design on occasion to military soldiers we are close to or to those who have helped us during our time of need. A protective charm of the mind for the protectors of our bodies. Humans refer to it as a 'good luck charm'?"

"Ah." I nodded in response to her question. I reached up and slipped a small pouch attached to a silver chain from under my shirt and carefully slipped the stone inside. Alani watched carefully and then pointed to the pouch.

"What's in there?" She asked.

"Well, this pouch is something my fiancée made. She has a matching one. We each have put really small trinkets that we have given each other into the pouch. The first small trinket she gave me came with the pouch." I smiled at the memory.

"What was the trinket?" Alani asked with a blink.

"A lock of her hair. You see we'd met on...the extranet and had maintained a long distance relationship for a long time. She found a really old tradition of giving a lock of hair to someone who was going to be away for a long time so that they would always have a part of their loved one with them. I sent her a lock of my own hair in return."

"Didn't it hurt?" Alani said reaching up to touch her...crest.

"No, our hair doesn't have any pain receptors." I said laughing.

"Oooh." Alani nodded with a serious look on her face that caused me to chuckle. She looked like she was about to ask more questions but her mother took her hand and gave a small tug.

"Come along Alani, our flight leaves soon."

"Alright." Alani looked sad for a moment then brightened up and walked over to the still quiet Inri to talk to him softly about Tuchanka.

I stood up at that point and shook Kilra's hand again. The small family walked off into the crowd Alani waving goodbye. Inri also gave a small wave as well before re-attaching himself firmly to Kilra's other hand with Alani talking excitedly at him about her 'fathers' home world.

As they disappeared into the crowd I noticed a flash of green and a hand waving out of the corner of my eye and turned to look curiously. I saw an human dressed in a hoodie wearing a chameleon mask. I blinked a bit as everyone was walking around him and not sparing him another glance. Again he waved at me and gave me a thumbs up. I stood up slowly as a thick crowd of pedestrians passed in front of him and when they thinned out he was gone.

What the heck was that about? I thought, looking around trying to spot the person. The guards didn't seem to have noticed anything wrong either. Not finding him I sat back down to finish eating but I couldn't shake the sensation that I recognized that mask. And that a _lot_ of people should be dead right about now.

-=-=-=-=*-*-*-*/*/*/=-=-=-=-

I fell into a black mood after that and picked at my food. The others tried to ask me what was wrong, to my annoyance and I ignored them in the beginning. After they bugged me enough, I finally passed it off as worry for Chief and his operation and they let it go at that and their cheer seemed to deflate a bit as well. None of us had gotten any word by this point and he should have been out of surgery by now.

Oh, the big time consumer with this situation would probably be any physical therapy he'd be put through but all of us were concerned about complications during the operation itself. Finished with our food we started back to the hotel room. I kept a paranoid eye out on the crowds looking for anything that would be out of place. We made it back to the hotel room without incident.

Well I honestly shouldn't say that we made it without incident. We didn't actually make it into the room. Ripley came tearing out of the room shrugging into her jacket and trying to get her shoes on at the same time. Surprisingly she stayed on her feet and sped past us, nearly bowling us over in the process, and down the hall toward the elevator. Her guard was close on her heels.

Dundee and I shared a glance before the sound of shoes squeaking harshly against slick flooring as someone skidded to a halt echoed in the hall. Moments later Ripley's head peaked around the corner. She started to say something right as her guard rushed past in his attempt to keep up with her, her sudden stop just at the edge of the hall not being expected, and he skidded to a halt causing another loud incident of squeaky shoes. I felt my brow twitch at the noise and bit back a growl of annoyance. She smacked her guard upside the head and looked back at us.

"Chief's out of surgery! MOVE IT YOU SLACKERS!" She shouted at us.

And she was gone a moment later, her guard left blinking stupidly at us at the end of the hall before he realized what happened and darted off after her. I scoffed softly and looked back to Dundee jerking my thumb in the direction Ripley went.

"Okay what they hell is up with those two?" I asked.

"Eh? Which two?"

"Chief and Ripley. Are they a couple or something?" I clarified.

"Ah, that." Dundee waved his hand at me. "Nah mate, those two are cousins. Only family they have is each other after an attack on the colony they lived on."

"That explains the attitude shes had then." I said with a small nod.

We followed at a more sedate pace, caught a cab and headed for Huerta Memorial. By the time we got there, Ripley had already claimed the seat next to Chief leaving Dundee and I standing off to the side of the bed with our guards at the door.

To say Chief looked like crap would have been putting it mildly. The injury to his spine had been the worst of it but he still had bruises spotting his face and arms from the various chunks of building that had hit him. One eye was still swollen a good bit but it looked like he could see out of it.

"Heya mate." Dundee said with a grin. "Things went well?"

"Well enough." Chief's voice was a bit craggy. "Doc's say I should be up and running after about a month of physical therapy. The new nerves are going to take time to get used to my brains instructions."

"So we get to record you falling on your face right?" I asked with a smirk.

"You do and I'll kick you in the nuts." Chief said with a grin.

"That's if you can hobble after me fast enough to catch me." I responded and crossed my arms. My smirk switched to a full on grin.

"I'll kick you for him." Ripley said with the first smile I'd seen on her for a while now.

"Again, that's if you can catch me."

"I wont be hobbled." She countered.

"You will after I kick you in the shin." I shot right back.

"Mathias?" Ripley asked sweetly.

"Yep?"

"You're an ass."

"Yep!"

We all shared a good laugh and continue to rib Chief about his limited mobility.

-=-=-=-=*-*-*-*/*/*/=-=-=-=-

-Begin Secondary Audio Log-

"We made a pretty damn good unit." The male voice says wistfully.

"Another case of making friends by being an asshole."

"What can I say? People like brutal honesty."

"Still I wish more could have been done."

"Yeah."

-End Secondary Audio Log-

-=-=-=-=*-*-*-*/*/*/=-=-=-=-


	11. Chapter 11

Alright then back to business. Chapters will be coming out just a little slower now. Real life issues are hectic sometimes.

Thank you all for your time and your reviews!

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Chapter 10: Anon. Raines Pov:

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After Perillia I was flagged down by more then a few Quarians asking me about earth music. They were a bit shocked to find out that humans had so many different styles that I got roped by a good sized group to sing a few songs for them. Several times a week. I didn't mind over much. I liked singing anyway and I didn't want to get too out of practice with my guitar. To my mortification though, Tali found out about it and starting broadcasting my 'concerts' to the ship. I only found out about it later when one of the off duty pilots, who hadn't been present during my sessions, thanked me for sharing such fascinating songs from my home world. I'd been miffed at Tali when I realized what she'd done and asked her why she'd do such a thing without letting me know. It wasn't that I didn't mind playing for large crowds, I just liked knowing how large of a crowd I was playing for. She'd crossed her arms and slipped into an 'I'm very angry' stance at my question.

"You incinerated my favorite hand towel." She said in a stiff tone.

"Wait...what?!" It took me a moment but I recalled putting the hand towel into the little cleaning unit. "But I hit the green button!"

"Exactly! Green to Quarians is used for contaminated items, it means 'hazardous', it doesn't mean 'go' or 'start' like it does to you humans!"

I'd gone beet red at that and started stuttering out apologies, then I noticed that her shoulders were shaking slightly. I went silent and stared at her for a moment before giving her a small shove realizing that I'd been had.

"You little brat! You're yanking my chain aren't you!?"

Tali fell onto her bunk hands wrapped around her middle as her filtered giggles filled the air.

"You should have seen your face! Keelah, hilarious."

"Yeah hardy har har. Now why'd you really broadcast me singing?"

"You've got a lovely voice and you're sharing your cultures music with us. I didn't want anyone else to miss out on it. And I wanted to play a prank on you."

"Brat."

"Yeah, and?"

We bickered for a few more minutes before I got a message alert on my omni-tool. Tali went to fiddle with her own, practicing with her hacking apps. I had two alert messages, one from Lucian and one from Falare. I opened the one from Lucian first and let out a relieved sigh.

"What's wrong?" Tali asked, not looking up from her program.

"Nothing now. One of Lucian's fellow N7 trainees got badly wounded. He's out of surgery and is expected to make a full recovery."

"Well that's a relief."

"Tell me about it."

We both turned our full attention back to our respective omni-tools and I opened up Falare's message.

'Hey Pinky! Finally got access to the terminals again, they lock them down for a week each month. I'm surprised you asked about Mother in your last message and didn't even talk to you about it when I had you on the line, sorry about that but it's a little touchy of a subject and hard to talk about sometimes. I didn't mean to ignore your question.

We don't get any direct contact since she broke ties for her oath but the rumor mill speaks often of Justicars and their deeds. I try to follow her movements as much as I can, least wise I think it's her movements and not another Justicars, though I think Rila has given up trying to watch her movements. If you're available right now I have a chat open on AsariMonastaryCommunications.

~Falare.'

I blinked at the message and did a quick search for the site she mentioned. Finding the right site was simple enough but there were multiple 'monitored' chats going. Those asari afflicted had limited contact with the outside world and said contact was monitored closely to ensure that there was nothing 'untoward' happening. I finally found what I believed to be the correct chat with a single user BlueBird1337 and went to the log in area. I frowned a moment and figured that since I had trained in the monastery I probably had my own username and password and tried to log in with one of my more common usernames. It worked, but then popped up with an error stating that it would have to verify my information since I was accessing the site from an outside terminal. I swore, startling Tali.

"What has you swearing?" Tali said with a surprised note to her voice, pausing her hacking program.

"Fuckin' useless red tape! I get the reason and all, considering Falare's in a special asari monastery, but I was trained there!" Well, supposedly trained there but still it was the principle of the thing.

"Trained? For what?"

"Partioning my mind." I tapped the side of my head with my gloved hand, figuring it would be okay to share my 'history' with Tali, 'sides the cat was already kind of out of the bag with me blurting out that I was trained anyway. "Get visions on occasion when I touch an object or a person. Memories of the person. Events that happened around the object. Don't ask me to detail touching a dead body."

"Visions? Really?" Tali's voice sounded sceptical.

"Yeah, real rare ability, touch based post cognition. Might even get a flash of the future on occasion from what I was told."

"So why train with the Asari?" She asked curiously, doubt still lacing her tone.

"It's an ability that's rare for them too. Plus with them being longer lived you're more likely to find someone who knows what to do to control things."

"So why not just meld and get the information on how to...partition your mind...instead of having to train?"

"Hurts to meld." I kept glaring at the screen which was showing me a small progress bar.

"Oh..." Tali stood up. "I'm heading to the training room now, want to try something on the mechs. Remember training starts in an hour."

"Got it. Have fun."

Tali left and after several moments waiting for the monitor to 'approve' me I was finally allowed into the chat room.

Blood'Raine: 'Bout time. Was wondering how much longer that would take.

BlueBird1337: Here I was thinking you were sleeping when you got my email.

BR: Nah, was just getting on Tali for broadcasting my singing.

BB: Why? You have a great voice.

BR: I suppose, but I don't like finding out that my singing is being broadcast _shipwide_ without my knowledge.

BB: Ah, that makes sense.

BR: Sorry, by the way.

BB: About what?

BR: Asking if you'd heard anything 'bout your mom. I didn't mean to upset you.

BB: It is okay. She has to do what feels right for her. I wish she didn't have to follow that path but who else would have the drive to stop Mirala?

BR: The whole situation sucks.

BB: Better then those who have your ability in a way. I don't have to wear gloves or be careful of what I touch.

BR: I hear you, only I'm not going to die when I've lived only a fifth of my average life cycle.

BB: True. Okay all of that is depressing. Subject change! How's life on the flotilla?'

Loaded question that. I frowned a bit at the screen and realised I didn't want her worrying about the potential time bomb Rhys'til and his aunt could end up being. I knew I would need to be careful about them both if they proved that they didn't want to let things go. I sighed softly, laying down on my bunk and typed a response.

'BR: So far it's very interesting. They even made a suit for me. Has the whole works.

BB: Really? Even the plumbing?

BR: Yeah, it's weird getting used to it.

BB: I imagine. What are you going to do about your immune system?

BR: Figure once my time here is up I'll head straight to the Citadel and one of the hospitals for immune system boosters. '

My 'tool pinged again and I switched screens. I frowned when I saw a message from 'Anon'. I switched back to the chat and asked Falare to give me a few and then opened the message.

'_Gifts incoming, I think it will be useful. Saren's already trying to fiddle with the geth, with little success right now. I'll try to help where I can. Take care fellow Hero._

_Anon.'_

I sat up abruptly at that and reread the message, three times. Lucian said that the Lore Keeper had called upon others who fit her profile type to try to stop the Dimension Hopper, and that the others had been killed because they were 'boring'. The D-hopper really was a twisted serial killer in that sense, so how in the world could someone have survived his attention when he got bored?

_'How are you alive?'_ I messaged back.

_'I'm not. Not really.'_ Came the quick response.

Say what? That didn't make much sense. I blinked at the message, biting at my bottom lip wondering if I really wanted to continue a conversation with this 'Anon'.

'_How does that work? We're talking right now, so how can you be 'not really' alive?'_

_'The Dimension Hopper likes to kill people with things from other dimensions he's been to. This isn't the first realm he's tried to destroy. From my own talks with the Lore Keeper the most she's ever been able to do with her Chosen Warriors is chase him away by foiling his attempts at screwing up the timeline. It is a murderous game to him but he does follow his rules, oddly enough, so if we are able to beat him at his game he'll move on to find other 'challengers'. For most of us, he gives us a chance to live, but then shows off how powerful he is once he grows bored and then kills us.'_

_'Okay, I figured that. So again how are you 'not really' alive?'_

There was a delay this time in the response. And I was a little peeved at the evasiveness this 'Anon' had shown.

_'Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were hit with the experimental laser from Tron without a Grid to travel to?'_

I felt myself go pale with the implication of what he was saying.

'_You were scattered across the Extranet?'_

'_Exactly. I was eighteen when I came here ten years ago. He got bored after six years and hit me with the beam. My sister was killed by flesh eating scarabs, she saved me.'_

_'Flesh eating...? Seriously? Mummy reference?'_

_'I think so, she was dead within moments and I've never heard of scarabs actually stripping someone down that fast.'_

I remembered suddenly that I had Falare on hold in our chat and popped back to her, letting her know it was something important I got confirmation for when she'd next be on and bid her farewell for the day. I turned my focus back on the email string with Anon and frowned as I read over things again.

_'So you pieced yourself back together and you're trying to help me?'_

_"I've tried to help several people, but this is the first time I've been...intact enough, aware enough...to properly communicate with anyone. I don't think he is aware that I survived, to an extent. So please try to keep me as secret as possible. I don't want him to realize that I'm here as I think my presence might upset him to the point where he'll think you're breaking his 'rules'.'_

_'Which would end in him trying to kill us. I have to ask though, what kind of help can you actually be to us if you are trying to hide?'_

_'Information mostly, small things. I was able to reroute the gift I'm sending to you. It was an automated pod that was easy enough to route to crash where a quarian mineral shuttle could find. They are coming back with it now. I can direct you to certain areas, help prevent pirate attacks by warning you of them. You can play it off your own ability. And before you ask, I did read your file...and some of your messages with Lucian. Your filed clued me to the possibility that you were like me, and the messages confirmed it.'_

_'Good plan that. You do understand if I ask you to never ever read my private messages again right?'_

_'Of course. I only did it that time to try to confirm my theory. Now that I've confirmed that you are the new chosen of the Lore Keeper I don't need to read any other messages. I'll send what information I can when I am able.'_

_'Thanks, do I keep calling you Anon?'_

_'Yes, I don't remember my name any more. My memories are still not fully intact. I remember my purpose. I remember my sister and how she died. I do not remember much else. I must go now, I wish to try to find...more of myself. Talk to you later.'_

_'Later.'_

I closed out my omni-tool and stared at the wall for several long minutes. The ramifications of what Anon had said had potential. His mind had been scattered to the extranet. I believed that we were in a sense all computers. We were simply organic computers, our brains our CPU and so on. That his consciousness survived where his body did not despite the D-hoppers efforts meant that there might, just might, be a chance for others to be saved. I knew from Lucian that the Lore Keeper had most likely tried to drop people into the Mass Effect universe closer to the events of the first game or during the events of the first game. Was it possible to save them? More then just how Anon was 'saved', but actually prevent them from being killed? It would take some thought. I glanced at the time and realized I was going to be late to training. Letting out a squeak, I rushed out of the room and down the hall at a fast clip for the training room.

Thankfully Kal'el was running a bit late and I made it to the training room before he arrived. Tali was still hard at work with one of the mechs, muttering softly in her own language with a biting tone. I could tell that whatever she was trying to do wasn't working out very well for her. I moved over to the guns and let out a breath and started working on taking them apart and putting them back together to try to minimize the effects of the headaches by getting my conscious mind used to the process.

Kal came in after I'd taken apart and put back together one of the pistols three times. He didn't say anything just checked what we were doing and nodding at our progress. He was a 'practice makes perfect' kind of guy and only stopped us when we were doing something wrong or if it was time to move on to the next lesson for the day.

A high pitch whine came over the speakers suddenly causing both me and Tali to jump and look up from where she was reattaching something to the mech. Kal stood by the door in a relaxed stance. Suddenly a voice came over the speaker.

"Ahem. This...this is Rhys'til nar Rayya. I wanted to apologize for the shame I have brought upon our ship and our spieces for my words and actions toward...toward 'Raine nar Rayya..."

Tali dropped the spanner that was in her hand and stood up slowly to stare at the speaker.

"I know it's not an excuse but my aunt's words had poisoned my own view of the other species of the galaxy and that in turn twisted my perception of 'Raine and her reasons for being here. She had become a threat in my mind to my safety, my friends safety, the fleets safety. I know now that I was wrong."

Tali's hands were twisting together in her little nervous habit and I glanced over to Kal'el. He still seemed cool and calm, watching the two of us carefully. I frowned and then remembered that he had overheard Tali's comment about the only way she'd forgive Rhys' would be if he apologized to the whole ship. I wandered over to him and leaned against the wall next to him.

"You put him up to this?" I asked him softly.

"He needed to apologize, and it isn't just Tali and you he needed to apologize to. Tali had the right of it saying he needed to do a public apology as his actions reflect on the fleet itself." Kal responded just as softly.

I nodded at that. He was right. What one single quarian does can affect the entire fleet for good or for ill. While Tali's future actions as a Hero of the Citadel would shed a brighter light on quarians in general, things still wouldn't be all that great for them as a whole. One bad action could harm the entirety of the fleet.

I wandered back over to Tali and placed a hand on her shoulder. She glanced at me for a moment, her eyes glowing wide beacons within her helmet. She looked back up at the speaker and I followed her gaze, tuning back into Rhys's apology.

"...sorry may not be enough for some of you for what I have said and I do understand if I am never forgiven. But I hope to earn back your trust and respect. Keelah se'lai."

The broadcast ended and Tali wrapped her arms around her middle. I slipped closer wrapping my arm around her shoulder and giving her a small hug.

"You alright kiddo?" I asked softly.

"I..." I could hear the tears in her voice. "I never really expected him to apologize. He's so stubborn."

"Even the most stubborn of us know when we need to apologize for something we've done Tali."

The next day found Rhys'til back in the training room with us. Tali stalked right up to him, punched him in the arm, hugged him and then stalked back to the mech she'd been working on the day before. Rubbing his arm where she'd punched him, none-to-gently, he made his way over to me. He started at the ground for several long moments and then held out his hand.

"I'm sorry. I was an ass."

"Yes...yes you were." I crossed my arms and shifted a bit. "Long as it was your aunts hate and not your own I'm willing to give you another shot, for Tali's sake."

He nodded his understanding, hand still outstretched. I straightened up and shook his hand carefully. He relaxed a bit and let out a soft sigh.

"Worried I wasn't going to give you the chance?"

"A bit...yeah."

I snorted and gave a gentle shove to one shoulder turning him enough so he could see that I was pointing at the mech Tali wasn't currently fiddling with and when he looked at me with what I assumed to be a blank look I gave him another push. I watched as he made his way over to the mech and started hacking it, though his omni'tool kept beeping as his attention was more on Tali then his hacking program. She finally snapped something at him that had him relaxing his stance.

I went back to taking apart my pistol, putting it back together and then taking a shot at a target in front of the barrier. The headaches were still strong but had gotten to the point where they were no longer knocking me on my ass, part of that was because I was starting to find a balance between letting my body move on its own and trying to force my limbs to move at a slower pace. The best balance at this point was to keep my attempts at maintaining the slower pace down to about five minute bursts and then let my body act on its 'instinct' for at least twenty minutes. I was going to try to push for more time in another week or so.

Kal walked over to me and watched my movements for several long moments before speaking.

"I'm surprised." He said softly as not to disturb the other two.

"What? That I didn't bite his head off? He's a kid and was under the influence of his aunts hate. I can forgive him...Once."

"Kind of you."

I shrugged in response.

"Most everyone deserves a second chance, especially kids."

"The file you submitted to us says that you're twenty-two and an only child."

"Yep. Adult by my own people's standards with no siblings. Why?"

"Just surprising how much you've taken to Tali."

I thought about it for a moment and then shrugged.

"She's like the little sister I never had but always wanted. She's a good kid."

I heard a beep from Tali's omni'tool, sounding that she got a message. I glanced over to her with a raised brow and then back to the gun. Finished with putting it together again I took another shot and started taking it apart, letting my hands move on their own. My head was hurting a bit more now. Kal watched me for a few moments and then nodded to himself.

"Most kids are only children like yourself. It's not uncommon for those of similar age to develop a sibling like bond. I have to say you're fitting the roll of older sister well enough."

I smiled at him and was about to respond when Tali sudden stood up with a small sound. We all looked over to her. She was bouncing on her toes.

"Oh Keelah. This is amazing."

"What?" Kal asked.

"A mineral scout ship found a felled pod filled with damaged geth parts in it."

"So?" I asked, heart beating rapidly as I realized this might be Anon's 'gift'.

"So, it was found Outside the Veil. And there are signs that they were disabled by their own guns!"

"They turned their guns on each other? How in the world would that have happened?" I asked. Kal and Rhys' moved over and looked a bit eager at the news as well.

"You can hack a geth for short period of time and then they self destruct. So it looks like someone succeeded in hacking them." Tali fell silent for a moment and I waited for her to share the rest of the information. The other two leaned in closer. "But neither geth shows signs of having self-destructed! The memory cores are still intact!"

"So if they'd been hacked the cores should have absolutely no information?"

"That or only bits and pieces!" Tali said eagerly. Kal and Rhy's nodded as well. "They are bringing the parts here to the Rayya."

"Isn't that dangerous?" I asked, a bit surprised that they were bringing the geth parts here of all places.

"If the units are in no danger of spontaniously reactivating then there is no worry." Kal said in a calming tone.

"Come on! Father is going to be there!" Tali grabbed my hand and then Rhys' hand and dragged us off to the hanger. I laughed at her enthusiasm and listened to her rattle off technobabble about how to bypass the firewalls in geth programming.

My thoughts were derailed when we got to the hanger bay. Tali let go of my hand and walked over to her father. She was still bouncing with energy but she was now showing a level of restraint while in the presence of her father. I knew that as an Admirals daughter she had to be on her best behaviour while 'in public'.

What had distracted me was the site of the torsos of the geth. One was shot up along the side and the front while the other was only had shot marks along the front of it. I had the horrible feeling that what had happened was a case of 'follow the old gods or else!' and 'the geth make their own future' and the 'good geth' tried to walk away only to get shot mid motion in it's side which would have triggered the fire fight which disabled them both. I didn't know how many programs were in each platform, Legion was unique as his platform was built to hold over a thousand programs and specifically built for interaction with organics. With both of them in the shape that they were, neither one looked to have been able to upload via satellite to their collective but I couldn't tell for certain. If Saren was just starting the experiment though it stood to reason that these two would have been isolated from the collective by either Saren or Soverian during the testing process.

Tali's father and the CooCoo for Cocopuffs Admiral 'Xen were eagerly looking over the two torso's running scans with their omni'tools to confirm what I figured was along the lines of the tenth check to insure that the pieces of geth wouldn't spontaneously reactivate. I smiled faintly at the thought and moved a little closer. Admiral 'Xen caught sight of me and clapped her hands together and her body language put me on edge as she stalked over to me.

"Ah! Here is the human who can..._See_...things, yes?" Her voice was oily sweet.

"Yes..." I answered slowly. "I cannot control if I see anything however..."

"Oh that's fine! I would just like the chance to examine how your little ability works." Her voice slipped into being a bit condescending and it reminded me for a moment that the voice actor also did Morrigan's voice in Dragon Age. I shook off the thought and shrugged at her with a frown.

"So you want me to what, touch the geth parts?" I asked stiffly.

"Oh yes, it will be absolutely _Fascinating_ if we can get any information on their activities through your ability. I've read up _Extensively_ about how it works when touching an object."

"Uh-huh." I started to walk past her pulling my suit glove off. "Don't ask me to do this again. I'm not one of your lab experiments."

"Mmm." She made a non-committal noise and watched me closely as I moved.

Tali and her father stood back as did the others as I moved to the cart holding the two geth torso's. I took a deep breath recalling what I'd read and closed my eyes and touched the first geth, the one who had shots in it's side. I know others might not think of the Geth as living beings, but I felt that they were sentient in their own right and deserved to be treated like any other sentient creature. I wanted to try to help seed that kind of point of view but the only thing I could think of to do that was to act as if I'd 'touched a dead body'.

I took in another breath and brought to mind what I'd thought earlier. I pulled away with a hiss blinking a bit. I frowned as if thoughtful and hesitantly reached out to touch the second one. I let my fingers hesitate over the metal before pushing forward and repeated the process. Pulling back I thought to myself about the Geth's question, 'does this unit have a soul?' and I willed the emotion I'd felt at the time forward to bring forth a few tears. I backed away from the cart, wrenching my glove back onto my hand and glared at the ground.

"Oh my, isn't that an _Interesting_ response." Admiral 'Xen said, her head tilted to the side. I glared at her.

"Don't ask me to ever touch another Geth again." I said, keeping my voice cold as I glared at 'Xen.

"'Raine? What's wrong?" Tali asked as she walked to me. I blinked looking over to her, frown still on my lips.

"I told you I get different types visions kiddo. I just..." I took a deep breath and started to walk away from the crowd. Tali shouted after me.

"Just what 'Raine? What happened."

I stepped into the elevator and reached to hit the button for our deck. I hesitated as if struggling with something and looked up to meet Tali's gaze.

"I just touched a dead body."

/*/-*-/*-/*-/*-/*-/*-/*/*-

-Begin Secondary Audio Log-

"How much of a uproar did that little display cause anyway?" The male voice has a curious lilt to it.

"Not much of one surprisingly. The Admirals did their best to keep what I'd said quiet. Rumors abounded and the number of Geth sympathies rose but ultimately it didn't do anything to change how the fleet functioned." The females voice is bitter.

"Still planned raids on the Veil?"

"Yeah."

"Foolish."

"Not like I had any concrete proof."

"Still, all they accomplished each time was loss of life, which they could ill afford. Time and again they chose a foolish path."

"Hopefully things can change." Her tone is a mix of doubt and hope.

"Hmph...Paragon." His tone is teasing.

-End Secondary Audio Log-


	12. Chapter 12

Alright folks, time for a bit of a time jump!

You've gotten to know 'us' and some of our foibles so it's time to move on to what 'we' will be doing during the events of Mass Effect itself!

The meat of this story will start up after this erm...'arc'? I'm trying to keep all the intro and set-up and building of characters down to below 20 chapters, or 20 chapters even depending on how things work out with my muse, excluding the prologue of course, and then Mass Effect 2 will start up.

I do appreciate your patience and another big shout out to Erttheking for all your help and time!

-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-

Chapter 11: Demons.  
Lucian's POV.  
Year 2183, two months before the start of Mass Effect.

-=-=-=/*/*/**-*-*-=-=-=-

I was surprised, in all honesty, at how quickly time flew by once Chief was back on his feet and the N7 training was able to continue. I was also surprised with the camaraderie that developed in full between myself and the others. I have to say that making friends hadn't been on the top of my list, nor was becoming our teams leader. After several missions our TI felt that I was the best leader during training and had me heading the missions since. The others didn't seem to mind all that much either, not merely because of my height but in how I could get them to listen to me or get them in line without having to physically knock heads together. (Our TI, Rodgers, had to stop a fight between Ripley and Dundee that way once when an argument got out of hand. Not even sure what they'd been arguing about as I'd arrived when things had degenerated to fists and cursing.)

What didn't surprise me was that the Dimensional Hopper continued to screw with our 'test' missions over the years. Each attack was less, in your face, then that first one, only small clues were left for me to find that signalled that he'd been a part of causing our missions to almost go FUBAR instead of the blatant visions and twisting of reality that he used during the first mission. He was playing with us and I hated it. He wasn't just playing with my life, he was playing with 'Raine's life and with the lives of my team, my friends. And I'll be the first to admit to being selfish, anything, anyone, that's 'mine' I'll fight to protect, even if I have to get a little, alright, A LOT, underhanded about it.

There was one mission that my team was sent out on that reaffirmed my belief that we were pawns on a very large scale chess game between the Lore Keeper and the Dimensional Hopper.

The attack was at a N3 training facility, everyone had been killed easily and there were only minimal signs of resistance which spoke to either a stealth attack or an overwhelming attack force. My team and I had been sent to investigate, back-up just moments away if things went south. At first it seemed like just dumb luck for the small facility, disguised as a normal little outpost, to have been found and wiped out by a superior mercenary force raiding for supplies (guns, food anything that wasn't literally bolted down had been carted off) but then I found two charred bodies with untouched smiley face pins on their chests. None of the other bodies had the pins on them or near them and that had set off alarm bells for me. It wasn't just some new band of mercenaries calling card, if it had then the pins would have lain on every body.

I'd searched the records in the system for the two who had pins on them and found that they were a brother/sister pair that had joined the military at age eighteen, around three years before 'Raine and I had been drawn into this world. The sister was known for a cold calculating 'get things done' attitude while her brother was a 'leave no one behind' kind of person, again the similarities rang loudly in comparison to 'Raine and I. They had no friends before joining the military. They also had no other family save for each other, like myself and 'Raine they were 'alone in the universe'. A bit more digging and I found that they had both sold old earth items that had been in mint condition, an ipad(still functional with an almost full charge sold days before they joined the military) and a iphone 5(same condition).

All of that information combined pointed to this pair having been chosen by the Lore Keeper. What surprised me though was that they were still 'on the board' when 'Raine and I were brought here. I sent a message to LK to try to confirm my suspicions and was not surprised with the response.

_'Yes, the two you found were as you believe. They were my first attempt at bringing a pair in well before the events of Mass Effect in order to allow them to gain the needed training for their survival at a natural pace. As you can see it was obviously a failed attempt. I hope for better results from yourself and 'Raine.'_

_'Why didn't you tell us? Why didn't you tell me? I might have been able to save them.'_

_'Because then I would need to find yet another pairing. You must not interfere with the deaths of the failed pairings, even if your time here overlaps with their own. He will kill you if you interfere with his 'game'. Do not act.'_

I wasn't surprised with the order. From the response it might very well have been that someone had tried to interfere with the deaths of other 'chosen' and ended up killing themselves and their partner because of it. The Lore Keeper could be a cold bitch and I could understand it. If you had to keep bringing in people to try to stop a particular enemy and everyone kept dying you stopped thinking of them as people. The cold calculus of war where the leader of an army reached the point where they could no longer view the people under then as anything other then numbers or they risked their sanity. It was a harsh viewpoint, but really Samara said(will say) it best; 'If I must kill a man because he has done wrong, do I really wish to know he is a devoted father?' Sometimes that kind of cold logic is the only thing keeping some people from going insane if they find themselves in a leadership position. Oh it's good to try to keep in mind that these are people you are ordering/leading to their potential death but sometimes you had to let go of what it meant if they died. I'd sent her another message later on, asking her why she didn't get rid of him directly.

_'I would if I could but my power dwarfs his. He gets his abilities naturally while I have to rely on limited technology. We are lucky that his mentality allows for him to 'play' by certain 'rules' while he travels from dimension to dimension. He attempts to collapse the timeline while I and my 'chosen' try to keep the timeline on track enough to keep things intact. And I always make sure to choose those who know the 'primary end' to the timeline he has chosen to 'play' in.'_

It was sobering to realize that as strong as her technology was that nature itself had produced a creature of such power. But one question came to mind.

_'Can he bleed? Can he die?'_

_'In other dimensions I have tried to arrange for his death, I have even called upon those of his own kind to stop him. He bleeds, so he can die...but the results of the battles lead to the collapse of the timeline he was in and several neighboring timelines as well, his madness allows him an edge over his brethren that they cannot counter without the loss of so many lives. The whole point of this endeavor is to keep the timelines intact, not to destroy them in the process. If you think of a way to defeat him without collapsing this time line and it's neighbors, then I will support you as I can. Anything that would risk this timeline and the others and I will not allow you to continue. Please, keep this in mind and do not act rashly.'_

I would keep those words in mind and wondered if something as simple as a surprise bullet to the skull might work. If I managed to get the SoB to show his face without realizing what I planned.

Out of everything though, I will say one thing for the Lore Keeper, her 'trial by fire' methods worked. It took some time and quite a few migraines but I was finally able to control my body instead of falling into the instinct that she'd 'gifted' to us when on a mission. I still developed headaches but I had found an acceptable amount of control. In the middle of a full on fire-fight I'd let instinct take control(learned the hard way on one mission when a bullet tore through my shield and into my arm that sometimes the soldiers instinct really was needed and that I would have to trust that instinct, for a person who prides themselves on controlling the situation around them it was a hard pill to swallow), but when infiltrating or directing an attack I maintained control and moved under my own will.

One highlight, one good memory throughout the years of struggling to survive the training and the battles I was put through, was around two years after 'Raine and I arrived in this dimension, around the Earth month of October 2180. The Migrant Fleet was near the Citadel and she was able to arrange for myself and my team to board the Rayya. Why? Well 'Raine and I had been engaged by that point for two years and several months, since we had the chance we wanted to get married, make it official. It wasn't often that the Fleet was near the Citadel when I was on leave so it was good timing.

We had to get the licence to marry from the Citadel itself and then we asked Admiral 'Raan to oversee the proceedings as she had the ability as an admiral to wed any member of the fleet and 'Raine was considered an honorary member. Tali acted as her 'bridesmaid' or 'maternal witness' ( for Quarians that meant a female family member who approved of the wedding, normally the mother but could also be the aunt or sister of the 'bride'. 'Raine and Tali both saw each other as sisters in a way, so Tali was allowed to stand in for the maternal witness since 'Raine had no living family members in this dimension.) while Dundee stood in as my best man or 'paternal witness' (opposite of the maternal witness, but I was in the same boat as 'Raine.), Chief and Ripley came along as well. The quarians were fascinated with human wedding procedures, but in the end the wedding was a smooth mesh of human and Quarian cultures.

'Raine refused to try to find a white dress for the wedding, one she hated dresses and two she felt it was a bit hypocritical to wear white. What she settled on was getting a silvery body suit (not an actual suit like the quarians gave her, but a body suit like what a professional ice skater would wear) on which she had sewn on several sheer layers of cloth of pale green and sapphire to act as a double-layer short 'skirt' and then a strip of sheer silvery cloth to run from shoulder to wrist. A silvery-blue shawl wrapped around her shoulders and a silver veil to cover her face. All in all it was a very simplistic yet elegant look that was wonderous and turned out to be something very similar to what quarian brides did. Cloth was to carefully be attached to ones suit at the waist, normally good to high quality that was passed down from mother to daughter(in-law) for their 'wedding dresses'.

The only suit I had was my military dress blues and 'Raine confessed that she liked the outfit better then the tux I'd rented for our prom. I gave in to her request to wear my dress blues easily enough, saved me the money I would have spent on getting a tailored suit (even now it wasn't common to run across a human male standing at 6'5" so finding a big and tall shop wasn't easy). I'd also bought a Tungsten wedding ring set with a celtic dragon design which she absolutely loved.

The wedding itself went smoothly, though 'Raine had to load up on antibiotics due to her immune system having weakened over the previous two years while on the Fleet. Even though I'd gone through the decontamination process there was still a chance she could get ill. My leave lasted for a month and we spent most of that time just enjoying time together, playing games, reading books to each other and...well the obvious after-wedding activities, I'll spare you the details.

After that we were able to settle into a routine. As the 'mate' to one of the Fleet I was allowed on board whenever able (though going through the decon process was lengthy as hell, it was worth it) and whenever I had leave I made my way to the Fleet, if it was in the area, to spend some time with 'Raine. Her sniper training had come a long way and she was on the tail end of the medical training she'd wanted to get. Not quite a nurse and not quite a doctor she could definitely qualify as a field medic at the least.

I could tell that she'd had to work harder then most due to the subtle flack she was getting. While Rhys'til had apologized, mending his friendship with Tali and had developed a rough friendship with 'Raine, his aunt was still making subtle problems for 'Raine, nothing that she could call the woman out on, elevator delays causing her to be late, parts missing when she was trying to repair something, supplies misplaced that she would need that would only be found hours later, things that couldn't be traced back to Rhys' aunt but that I was certain was being caused by her because there were too many instances of the above examples for it to have been an accident each time.

'Raine was willing to let things go for the most part, she didn't mind working hard or the small delays and it was never anything life threatening so she didn't want to rock the boat. She kept a close eye on her things and was always careful to stay with Tali, Kal or Rhys in order to not be alone at any point. As much as she wanted to believe that the worst of it would be the equivalent of school yard bullying she was wise enough to keep her guard up while trying to do what she could to help the fleet.

In fact she was thinking about undergoing a pilgrimage herself to help out the Fleet, never mind that her mere presence and willingness to work with and live with the 'gypsies' of the universe was already helping the Quarians out. In fact I'd noticed that the media was quite excited about the prospect for the first few months she was on the Fleet, questioning her motives, questioning her logic, the usual 'left wing, right wing' point of views(I had nothing much else to do when my team, I could only play games for so long without wanting to find something else to do, and it was good to keep up on 'current events' while we waited for Chief to recover). Like all news events, things died down after a while but I worried for the time when 'Raine was going to get cornered by the press, she'd been on the Fleet all this time and I knew once she set foot on a main hub like the Citadel she'd be swarmed by reporters hoping to make a story.

We'd talked about that among other things, how she would handle the press, what she would try to find for her pilgrimage, etc. She didn't much like the idea but knew she'd have to do some 'face time'. As for ideas for her pilgrimage we looked over the fleet to see what ships were lacking with me and we found that at least two ships were low on fighters. A good bit of searching around and we were able to locate a few salvage shops on the Citadel that she'd be able to visit that offered decent pricing for used ships. After that she would start to implement her plans for getting onto the Normandy for the events of Mass Effect 2. I wasn't exactly pleased with her idea, but it was better then her being with Tali on her mission to Haelstrom in which only Tali and Regar will survive, which I vetoed on the survivability factor.

As for my own plans I had to be careful not to act in any way which would alert The Illusive Man that I knew where he was and that there might be an incoming threat or I would loose my window of opportunity. His base wasn't all that hard to infiltrate for Shepard and her gang in Mass Effect Three, the biggest problem for them was locating the place. My own problem was the opposite really, I was going to be infiltrating his mobile station without alerting him to the fact that I was there, at least for him to not realise that I was right on top of him and could disable him. To that end I had saved up to now in order to purchase top of the line military cloaking gear. The other problem though was going to be how to get all his information.

Even after all this time I still hadn't worked out a good way to get his information other then trying to enlist the help of an asari to read his mind. That prospect led to other difficulties such as a trust factor. Put simply, the only asari that I came to know over the years was Alani and her mother. Kid kept in touch with me surprisingly, letting me know how her and her brother were doing. It was sweet but I wasn't sure I wanted to risk them by approaching their mother, Kilra, for her help in...mining The Illusive Man's mind for Cerberus information and control codes. It was an option, truly it was, but the problem was; could I trust Kilra not to betray me later on? For that matter could I trust her after she melded with me to give me TIM's information? I could always play the 'tyrant in control' or 'danger to your children' card to get her to help me, but again, what could be done to keep her loyal after I had control? Either way I would need to get in contact with her after this mission to ask if she would be able to help, I didn't have much time left.

I still had some time to figure out what I wanted to do about the situation, though not much, it was only two months before Shepard would be made the first human Spectre and I would have to move swiftly after that to be in place when Miranda moved to meet TIM about Shepards importance at the start of Mass Effect 2. I was able to confirm with the Lore Keeper that that moment was the first time she'd met TIM face to face so my plans wouldn't be FUBAR from the start.

Right now I was ordering said stealth gear while my team and I waited for new orders. I had waited this long because the scuttlebutt when I went to order last time said a newer model would be coming out in three months. Once we had the new orders I was going to need to find a way to get listed MIA (Missing in Action.) I wasn't going to be able to stay a member of the Aliance military and the honorable discharge process would take some time. My idea was to disappear in the middle of a firefight and if I needed to show up somewhere as myself later on I could claim amnesia.

I shook my head, putting away those thoughts for later and finalized the order and saw that it would be a few days to arrive. I turned and looked at the others. It had been a long five years but some things hadn't changed from my first few months here. Dundee was busy playing games on his omni-tool, as was his usual MO, Ripley was working out, push-up reps at the moment and Chief was cleaning his gear. All in all it was starting off as a normal day.

Right now we were stationed at a small moon base in the Parnithia System of the Athena Nebula, close to Thessia, the Asari home world. Our mission was to protect a small group of scientists tied to the B.S.A.A while they were working on an anti-virus to some miscellaneous virus that affected Asari pigmentation. It wasn't anything lethal for Asari, in fact it didn't affect them at all beyond a temporary change in skin tone to a purplish color, but it did give humans severe flu like symptoms if they came in contact with the afflicted asari and those symptoms could persist for months and on occasion the fevers got lethally high. There was my own human team and then a group of Asari commandos, but we hardly saw each other as the Asari took opposite shifts from us.

They were finalizing the anti-virus now and then would begin shipment within the next few hours at which point we'd be getting our next mission parameters and most likely be heading back to Earth for a bit. I frowned, even though my primary plan involved going MIA and I didn't much like the idea of abandoning the others, they'd become good friends, a good team to have at my back.

"You alright boss?" Chief's quiet voice interrupted my thoughts and I blinked, looking over to him. He was keeping his voice soft enough not to attack the attention of the other two.

"Yeah. Just fine." I answered.

"You've got a distant look in your eyes boss." Chief set down the shin guard he'd been working on. "Seen that look before. You've got a Plan."

He said the word plan with a level of intensity that made me realize he was capitalizing the p. I raised a brow at him and then smiled lazily with a shake of my head.

"You make it sound like I have something ominous planned man."

Chief shrugged. Out of the four of us he was the quietest and was almost monkish in his attitude and ways. He hardly ever talked, but when he did he showed that he had a very brilliant and philosophical mind unlike his cousin Ripley who was a bit wild. That and he a rapier wit and a good sense of humor. I often found the two of us trading friendly barbs and coming up with clever insults. He could also read people's intentions by watching them for only a few moments, by their body language and facial expressions. More often then not he acted as our spotter if we had a training mission where we knew an attack was imminent on a location but didn't have any information on the individual attacking said location. He picked up the wrist guard of his armor and started buffing it.

"Ominous? Maybe...maybe not. You got the look of a big cat on the hunt. Only question is; what, or perhaps Whom, are you hunting?"

I sat back in my seat, shifting a little bit to get more comfortable as I considered what he said. I decided to open up a little to alleviate his worries but not enough to risk my plans.

"Just have to take care of...something."

"Mmm...vengence?"

"No. Let us say...power in the wrong hands."

"Mmmm... a coupe then? But are you certain that power does lie in the wrong hands or are you seeing what you wish to see as you desire that power for yourself?"

I blinked a bit at that, once again finding myself a bit surprised at his ability to read people. He would have made a good diplomat but by his own words he preferred the life of a solider. I found myself wondering again if it would be too risky to involve the others with my plan. I threaded my fingers together and then shrugged.

"It's in the wrong hands, I know that."

"Can you not simply talk with the...leader?"

"No." I said simply and with a small touch of regret.

admittedly I would have prefered to work along side Harper(TIM) since he was an effective leader and had brilliant ideas, but considering he was even now being affected by indoctrination and his own hubris that might not be possible. The easy solution would be to just use a loyal asari to take control of all the codes, plans, back-ups and sleeper agents by using his own knowledge and then kill him. However the Lore Keeper herself had said that a 'trojan horse' for the Reapers needed to exist and leaving Harper alive allowed for a situation of 'the devil you know over the devil you don't'. If I kept an eye on him I might be able to minimize the damage he would do.

"Think you'll need help?" Chief's voice brought me out of my musing.

"Rather not involve you guys. You've got good things going on for you."

"Maybe. You really think going alone will do the job though?"

"Sometimes the most effective missions are the solo ones."

"Also the ones that can go FUBAR the fastest." Chief countered as he looked up at me.

I let out a soft grunt in response and shrugged. He was right. Solo missions could go south pretty fast especially if any support was far enough away as to be non-existant.

"If you end up needing help, ask us." Chief set down the wrist guard and looked at me calmly. "Don't shut us out because you don't think you can trust us."

My brow rose in shock. I'd been expecting him to say 'because you're afraid for our safety' not that I didn't think I could trust them. I sat up slowly at that and frowned at him.

"What makes you think I don't trust you?"

"Oh you trust us in a fight, you trust us to follow orders, you trust us in part as friends." Chief leaned back. "But that's just it, you only trust us 'in part' as friends. You've always held something back from us and I think the only one who truly has any idea of what that is, is your girl. And from the way you act from time to time, it's something pretty damn dark."

"Sometimes the way you can read people can be scary Chief." I said with a lazy grin. "I'd like to trust you with this but..." I frowned at him now, and I knew my eyes had gone cold. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you what was at risk and I can't afford that disbelief affecting what I need to do."

Chief snorted slightly. "You talk like what's at risk is the end of the universe as we know it."

I raised a brow slightly at him and remained silent at his comment. His eyes narrowed as he looked me over slowly, taking in my expression and my stiff posture. He slowly picked up his other wrist guard and started working on it, breaking our gaze for several minutes before looking back up.

"Well...I'd say you're pulling a Chicken Little but I know you well enough, you're serious." Chief said, voice still soft. "If you need help, just ask."

"You're a good man Chief. If I do need help I'll ask."

There was a beeping from my 'tool and I popped it open and read the message. I nodded and stood up, catching the attention of the others.

"Suit up you slackers! Time to move out! Eggheads are about to be on the move!"

Everyone started to suit up, ready to move and eager for action.

-=-=*-/**-/*=-=-=-

-=-=Begin Audio Log=-=-

"There are fewer things in the universe more valuable then people you can truly trust." The woman's voice is soft.

"Earning that trust is the challenge." The man's voice responds. "How many could we tell about our situation and truly be believed? Only an Asari has the ability to 'know' a persons mind in such a manner, and even then could they believe?"

"It was a risk you had to take."

"I would have preferred not to have ended up in such a situation to begin with."

"There are benefits to it though."

"Hmph...mother-hen."

Soft laughter from both fills the air.

-=-=End Audio Log=-=-


End file.
